OUR  SEVEN  CHURCHES 


T.K.BEECHER 


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OR   157    .B43   1871           . 
Kecher,  Thomas  Kinnicut, 

1824-1900. 

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"BEING    Mx^NY   ARE    ONE    BODY.' 


OUR  SEVEN  CHURCHES. 


THOMAS    K.    BEECHER, 

Elmira,  N.  Y. 


NEW  YORK: 

J.    B.    FORD    AND    COMPANY, 

39  Park  Row. 

1871. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1870, 

BY   J.    B.    FORD    &    CO., 

in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


University  Press  :  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co., 
Cambridge. 


TO 

HORACE    BUSHNELL,    D.  D. 

Twenty-five  years  ago,  in  your  discourse  of  Christian 
Coniprehensiveness,  you  gave  to  men  the  truths  that  vital- 
ize these  Lectures.  I  decorate  them  therefore  with  your 
name,  and  would  win  readers  for  my  words  by  claiming 
that  they  are  kin  to  yours,  and  by  gratefully  professing 
myself:  — 

Your  son  in  the  Gospel,  — 

THOS.  K.    BEECHER. 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE    I. 

Page 

Roman  Catholic .      i 


LECTURE    II. 
Presbyterian ,        .    21 

LECTURE    III. 
Protestant  Episcopal 37 

LECTURE    IV. 
Methodist  Episcopal 57 

LECTURE    V. 

Independent.  —  Baptist  and  Congregational    .        .    77 

LECTURE    VI. 
Liberal  Christian 99 

LECTURE    VII. 
Choosing  one's  Church 123 

LECTURE    VIII. 
The  Church  of  Christ 143 


PREFATORY. 


T  DO  not  find  that  the  people  whom  I  serve  are 
-■-  any  less  content  with  our  own  faith  and  order 
because  of  my  repeated  efforts  to  show  them  that 
other  churches  excel  us  in  some  particulars,  A 
good  man's  home  is  the  more  delightful  to  him 
as  he  calls  to  mind  that  the  world  is  full  of  good 
homes,  and  that  millions  are  as  happy  as  he. 

Time  was  when  "  toleration  "  was  reckoned  a 
christian  grace.  Established  churches  tolerated 
{i.  e.  endured)  dissenters  as  they  would  any  other 
remediless  evil  or  mysterious  visitation.  But  in 
this  land,  where  there  is  no  privileged  class  nor 
established  church,  he  who  talks  of  tolerating  his 
fellow-citizens  insults  them  and  becomes  himself 
intolerable  in  his  conceit.  We  must  learn  to  re- 
spect and  love  our  fellow-men  and  our  sister 
churches. 

Charity  between  churches  is  too  often  a  mere 
sentiment,  a  transient  thing  smiling  out  now  and 


VI  PREFATORY. 

then  at  some  union  meeting  or  anniversary,  where 
the  speakers  are  equitably  adjusted  between  the 
denominations,  and  each  one  is  careful  not  to 
say  anything  in  particular,  and  all  go  home 
delighted  to  find  that  brethren  can  meet  and 
talk  without  offence ;  —  all  thankful  that  the 
meeting  "went  off  well,"  without  a  quarrel  or 
any  scandal ! 

Charity  must  strike  its  roots  deeper  than  this. 
The  sentiment  needs  a  refreshment  from  facts. 
To  respect  a  man  increasingly  we  must  know 
him  more  and  more.  To  love  a  church  we 
must  see  in  it  something  lovable.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  love  on  general  principles  or  from  a 
sense  of  duty.  What  better  service,  then,  can 
be  rendered  to  a  christian  man  that  would  love 
his  brethren,  than  to  set  before  him  their  lovable 
qualities  ?  This  service  I  have  endeavored  to 
render  to  my  people,  and  now,  by  this  little 
book,  to  as  many  others  as  may  read. 

The  witness  which  I  bear  to  the  excellence 
of  churches  other  than  my  own  has  a  value  in 
the  fact,  that,  while  they  are  not  my  own,  they 
yet  compel  an  admiration  which  I  am  able  but 
in  part  to  express. 


PREFATORY.  VU 

I  make  no  pretension  to  exhaustive  detail  in 
setting  forth  the  characteristics  of  these  churches. 
Possibly  I  may  not  have  noticed  their  strongest 
points,  their  most  attractive  features.  I  have 
walked  in  them  as  in  gardens  of  the  Lord  ; 
their  beauties  have  filled  my  eye,  and  the  air  is 
fragrant  round  about. 

All  who  profess  and  call  themselves  christian 
have  surely  more  points  of  agreement  than  of 
disagreement.  Every  church  that  has  main- 
tained a  separate  denominational  existence,  by 
the  mere  fact  of  living  proves  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  her  that  maintains  her  life.  Every 
church  can  teach  every  other  church  something, 
and  every  church  can  learn.  There  are  diversi- 
ties of  operations,  but  one  Spirit, — many  churches, 
but  one  religion. 

I  cannot  see  that  there  need  be,  and  I  certainly 
see  that  there  cannot  be  realized  among  men  the 
dream  of  church  unity.  No  two  men  have  the 
same  horizon.  Because  the  eye  cannot  reach  in- 
definitely, therefore  vision  must  be  bounded  some- 
where. Because  no  two  eyes  can  be  in  the  same 
place  at  the  same  moment,  therefore  the  bounda- 
ries of  vision  are  the 'same  to  no  two  persons; 


VIU  PREFATORY. 

that  is,  every  man  has  his  own  horizon.  Because 
a  man  cannot  know  all  things,  nor  be  acquainted 
with  everybody,  therefore  he  must  be  content 
with  knowing  some  things  and  loving  a  few  peo- 
ple. The  things  and  the  people  that  a  man  is 
able  to  take  in,  constitute  his  church.  But  let 
every  man  remember  that  beside  his  church, 
bounded  as  it  must  needs  be  by  his  horizon, 
there  remain  the  rest  of  mankind  and  the  uni- 
verse of  God.  Let  no  man  think  of  himself 
or  of  his  church  more  highly  than  he  ought 
to  think,  but  let  him  think  soberly,  according  as 
God  hath  dealt  to  every  man  the  measure  of 

faith. 

T.  K.  B. 

Elmira,  N.  Y.,  August,  1870. 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC 


LECTURE    I. 

ROMAN    CATHOLIC. 

If  thou,  Lord,  siiouldst  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord,  who 

SHALL   STAND? — Ps.  CXXX.  3. 

IN  this  world  good  and  evil  grow  side  by  side. 
The  net  worth  of  a  man  is  always  a  balance 
Struck  between  his  good  and  his  evil.  None  is  good 
save  one,  that  is  Cod.  As  with  man,  so  also  with 
churches  or  societies  of  men.  Good  and  evil  grow 
side  by  side  in  all  qhurches.  There  is  good  in  all,  but 
none  all  good.  If  thou.  Lord,  shouldst  mark  iniquity, 
O  Lord,  what  church  can  stand  ? 

Oddly  enough,  however,  good  men  have  sometimes 
devoted  themselves  to  this  very  work  of  marking 
the  iniquity  of  other  men, — proving  and  publishing 
the  errors  of  other  churches.  Men  are  charitable 
toward  the  faults  of  their  own  church,  but  severely 
critical  when  they  inspect  other  churches. 

No  church  that  I  know  of  can  stand  up  and  deny 
all  the  accusations  that  are  heaped  upon  her.  Since 
they  cannot  be  denied,  they  are  resented.     Counter 


4  ROMAN    CATHOLIC. 

charges  are  hurled  back.  We  find  in  literature  no 
malediction  that  can  equal  in  eloquence  and  force  the 
words  that  christians  have  used  in  cursing  chris- 
tians, —  so  they  all  called  themselves,  but  would  not 
call  each  other.  Religious  wars  have  been  bloodiest 
of  all  wars,  —  religious  hate  most  venomous  of  all 
hate. 

Some  of  the  best  people  of  this  city  suspect  each 
other  of  evil,  and  fail  to  be  good  neighbors,  because 
of  this  way  we  have  of  noting  the  errors  of  other  men 
and  of  other  churches,  rather  than  their  traits  of  ex- 
cellence. Each  church  excels  all  others  in  something, 
else  it  would  have  no  excuse  for  living. 

I  purpose,  therefore,  several  lectures  in  which  I  shall 
take  pains  not  to  criticise,  censure,  or  "mark  ini- 
quity  "  j  but,  contrariwise,  shall  declare  the  good,  the 
excelling  good,  which  I  find  in  each  of  the  several 
churches  of  Elmira.  I  will  begin  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  as  being  the  largest  in  this  city, 
and  destined  to  become,  so  many  think,  the  most  in- 
fluential denomination  in  the  United  States. 

As  protestants,  many  of  you  will  express  surprise, 
if  not  incredulity,  in  view  of  my  undertaking.  Like 
Nathanael,  you  will  be  asking,  —  Can  there  any  good 
thing  come  out  of  Rome  ?  To  which  I  can  only  make 
Philip's  honest  answer,  —  Come  and  see.     For :  — 


A   GOOD   NAME.  5 

I.  The  name  Catholic  is  very  excellent. 

The  Church  of  Rome  calls  herself  Catholic,  and 
no  man  can  get  this  name  away  from  her.  Catholic 
means  universal.  All  christians  believe  in  the  holy 
catholic  church  and  the  communion  of  saints.  But 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  somehow  gained  this  name 
for  herself,  and  every  boy  in  the  city,  if  he  hears  the 
word  "  Catholics,"  thinks  of  these  Roman  Catholics. 

Names  are  sometimes  monuments.  The  fact  that 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  this  name,  and  that  none 
of  us  can  get  it  away  from  her,  is  a  very  strong  pre- 
sumption that  the  name  belongs  to  her  historically 
and  of  right.     Not  in  name  only,  but  in  fact  also  :  — 

2  This  Church  of  Rome  is  more  nearly  a  uni- 
versal or  catholic  c/mrcli  than  any  other  christian  de- 
nomination. 

Of  all  nominal  christians  these  Roman  Catholics 
are  most  numerous.  Of  all  religions  the  Buddhist  is 
probably  accepted  by  the  largest  number  of  human  be- 
ings, but  the  Roman  Catholic  by  the  greatest  variety. 

The  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  and  ritual  is  the 
established  religion  in  Italy,  Sicil}^,  Spain,  Portugal, 
Sardinia,  Belgium,  several  small  German  States,  one 
third  of  Switzerland,  and  all  the  vast  empires  France 
and  Austria.  So  much  for  Europe,  —  the  home  of 
learning,  art,  philosophy,  and  civilization. 


6  ROMAN   CATHOLIC. 

This  side  of  the  water  Rome  claims  South  America 
and  Mexico,  and  a  mighty  army  of  devotees  in  the 
Canadas  and  the  United  States.  In  Asia  and  Africa 
even,  and  on  the  islands  of  the'  sea,  the  heroic  mis- 
sionaries of  Rome  have  outrun  all  competition,  and  in 
both  zeal  and  success  surpass  any  other  one  denomi- 
nation, —  and  I  think  I  may  say  any  other  three  de- 
nominations. 

Go  to  Rome,  and  you  shall  find  schools  and  col- 
leges there  for  all  nations  and  every  language  upon 
earth.  Her  ecclesiastics,  when  they  meet,  speak  more 
tongues  than  Jerusalem  heard  on  Pentecost.  But  for 
the  Church  tongue,  Latin,  spoken  nowhere  else  by 
the  living,  these  ecclesiastics  could  not  talk  together. 

The  great  council  now  sitting  in  Rome  *  illustrates 
the  catholicity  of  this  great  Church.  I  know  of  no 
other  church  or  denomination  that  can  call  together  a 
council  of  such  dignity  as  to  arrest  the  attention  of  all 
Christendom,  and  furnish  texts  for  repeated  articles  in 
every  newspaper  and  periodical  in  the  known  world. 

Disagree  as  we  may  and  must  with  the  Church 
OF  Rome,  let  us  promptly  admit  that  if  any  church  de- 
serve to  be  called  catholic  or  universal,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  other  churches,  this  Roman  Church  is 
the  one.     Consequent  upon  her  age  and  catholicity, 

I  note  :  — 

*  July,  1870. 


A   RICH    CHURCH.  7 

3.  The  wealth  of  this  Church  in  its  most  desirable 
forms  —  architecture^  sculpture^  paiftting^  music,  and 
devotional  literature  —  is  excellent. 

In  this  land  of  meeting-houses  necessitated  by  dis- 
sent and  division,  we  can  form  little  conception  of 
those  monuments  of  piety  into  which  united  peoples 
brought  their  contributions,  as  they  did  their  prayers, 
daily  through  a  lifetime,  until  successive  generations 
left  their  testimony  towering  up  amid  their  graves, 
that  the  only  enduring  interest  and  imperishable  value 
possible  to  man  is  his  piety  and  its  achievements. 

I  do  not  forget  that  monarchs  have  commuted  im- 
perial villanies  by  chapels  aiid  by  tombs  to  saints.  I 
do  not  forget  that  ecclesiastics  have  subsidized  the 
world  to  come  to  build  up  cathedrals,  whose  very 
name  betrays  their  use,  —  mere  canopies  for  the  cathe- 
dra or  bishop's  chair. 

But  beside  these  monstrous  abuses  and  extortions, 
there  have  been  for  centuries  the  steady  givings  of 
humble  men  and  women  to  the  treasury  of  the  Church, 
—  givings  fragrant  as  the  two  mites  of  the  widow ; 
labors  as  pious  as  the  service  rendered  by  Mary  to 
the  feet  of  the  Master.  Communities  undisturbed  by 
doubt, — communities  awed  and  quickened  by  the  same 
ritual,  ministered  unto  by  the  same  priest,  and  led  in 
beautiful  consent  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  —  united 


8  ROMAN    CATHOLIC. 

communities,  —  blossom  naturally  into  works  of  pious 
art. 

In  such  communities  the  artist,  a-thrill  with  genius, 
works  out  his  plans  and  pictures,  and  brings  them  to 
the  village  church  as  his  offering  to  God.  The  sculp- 
tor finds  in  religious  rapture  inspiration  which  golden 
guineas  can  never  give  him.  The  poet,  who  is  never 
a  thinker  but  always  a  sympathizer,  vibrating  with 
the  passions  that  fill  the  air,  will  string  his  lyre  and 
sing  his  loftiest  tune  among  peoples  who  are  surging 
hither  and  thither  in  great  tides  of  religious  passion. 

In  short,  the  wealth  of  ages,  slowly  accumulated, 
remains  in  the  possession  of  this  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  —  ages,  too,  in  which  religion  was  much  and 
economy  nothing.  And  this  accumulated  wealth  — 
architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  poetry,  music,  and 
pious  literature  —  I  note  as  a  peculiar  excellence  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  in  which  regard  she 
is  not  equalled  by  any  denomination  of  christians, 
and  will  not,  probably,  ever  be  surpassed. 

4.  The  minify  of  Roman  Catholic  docirifie  and  ritual 
throiighoid  tJie  world  is  excellent. 

When  I  preach  for  my  brethren  of  Other  churches, 
I  find  cards  in  their  pulpits  telling  the  order  of  ser- 
vice and  what  is  usually  done  at  that  church.  I  leave 
such  a  card  to  guide  the  brother  who  stands  in  my 


FIRM   AND    CONSISTENT.  9 

place.  And  when  any  of  you  go  into  a  strange 
meeting-house  you  feel  a  little  embarrassed.  You  do 
not  know  just  what  to  do  or  what  comes  next.  Not 
so  with  a  Roman  Catholic.  If  he  go  to  church 
here  on  our  Market  street,  and  learn  the  calendar 
and  ritual  of  service,  he  will  find  the  same  the  wide 
world  over.  He  may  go  into  any  parish  church  or 
proud  cathedral  or  missionary's  tent,  and  he  will  find 
the  priest  walking  by  the  same  rule  and  minding 
the  same  things  that  he  learned  on  Market  street, 
Elmira. 

5.  The  firmness  and  consistency  ivith  which  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  asserts  her  quality  and  author- 
ity are  excellent. 

For  this  very  excellence  she  is  often  reproached  and 
called  bigoted.  Such  reviling  is  thoughtless  and  ill- 
advised. 

If  any  man  say  that  Jesus  Christ  has  founded  a  visi- 
ble church  on  earth,  and  declared  her  proper  order, 
and  endowed  her  with  sacraments  and  divine  author- 
ity ;  and,  next,  that  the  church  in  which  he  is  dwelling 
is  that  one  true  church  of  Christ ,  —  then  he  must  of 
necessity  deny  that  other  churches  are  true  churches. 

Sir^  I  am  sole  agent  of  Rodgers'  Soiis  for  this  city. 
They  have  no  other  agent  here.  But  I  am  none  of  your 
sti7igy  sort,  and  so  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  every  store 
I* 


lO  ROMAN   CATHOLIC. 

m  toiun  sells  Rodgers'  cutlery  just  as  good  as  mine. 
Nonsense  ! 

He  who  in  one  breath  says,  /  belong  to  the  one  true 
and  only  church  of  Christ  upon  earth,  and  in  the  next 
breath  declares  approval  of  any  and  all  other  churches 
as  being  as  good  as  his  own,  stultifies  himself.  Pre- 
tensions such  as  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  makes 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  liberalism  and  general  good 
fellowship.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  con- 
sistent in  this  matter.  She  claims  to  be  the  one  true 
church  of  God,  and  she  will  not  allow  any  other 
claimant  to  speak  uncontradicted.  She  claims  that 
salvation  is  with  her  ;  and  consistently  she  declares 
the  perdition  of  them  who  are  outside  of  her.  This 
consistency  is  excellent.     It  is  an  element  of  strength. 

In  this  same  line  of  excellent  consistency  I  note  :  — 

6.  The  fair,  square  way  in  which  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  speaks  of  and  treats  the  Bible. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  that  the 
Bible  as  interpreted  and  applied  by  the  Church  and 
her  ministers  is  of  uttermost  worth  and  authority. 
But  that  when  used  by  the  unlearned  and  unstable  it 
becomes  the  text  £)f  divers  and  strange  doctrines. 
Therefore  let  no  man  have  or  read  the  whole  Bible  ex- 
cept by  permission  of  his  priest  or  spiritual  superior. 

Sincere  christians  will  be  pleased  to  know  that  the 


USE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  II 

Catholic  Church  selects  and  prints  and  gives  to  her 
children  all,  or  very  nearly  all,  those  Scriptures  which 
have  been  proved  precious  age  by  age.  By  this  I 
mean,  that  if  you  will  prepare  me  a  list  of  the  instruc- 
tive and  comfortable  words  of  Scripture  as  you  have 
proved  them  after  years  of  reading,  I  will  show  you 
nineteen  twentieths  of  them  all,  selected  and  classified 
and  given  to  good  Catholics  in  their  prayer-books 
or  devotional  manuals.  The  gospels,  the  epistles, 
and  the  psalms  which  we  find  in  the  book  of  com- 
mon prayer  of  the  protestant  episcopal  church  are 
translated  bodily  from  similar  manuals  used  by  pious 
Catholics.  I  believe  it  to  be  the  custom  in  churches 
of  every  name  to  use  the  Scriptures  eclectically  and 
interpret  them  by  a  creed.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  frankly  declares  that  they  ought  to  be  so  used 
if  at  all,  —  a  very  excellent  frankness.  In  this  con- 
nection I  note  :  — 

7.  77^^  Roman  Catholic  Cb-VR-Cyl  at  kast  professes 
to  accept  and  illustrate  much  Scripture  that  is  usually 
disregarded  or  explained  away. 

Somewhere  in  her  vast  variety  of  doctrine  and  ritual 
she  finds  place  for  nearly  everything  spoken  of,  or  even 
hinted  at,  in  Scripture.  I  dare  not  say  that  her  illus- 
trations are  all  of  them  sound  and  accurate  ;  but  I 
note  that  the  mere  intention  to  fulfil  all  Scripture  is  at 
least  an  excellent  intention. 


12  ROMAN    CATHOLIC. 

Jesus  washed  the  disciples'  feet.  A  Roman  bishop 
washes  the  feet  of  twelve  beggars  annually. 

St.  James  tells  us  of  anointing  the  sick  with  gil  and 
praying  over  them.  The  parish  priest  takes  his  oil 
and  goes  and  prays  by  the  sick. 

St.  Peter  tells  about  spirits  in  prison  to  whom  Jesus 
went  and  preached.  The  Church  of  Rome  tells  us 
of  purgatory  and  spirits  still  in  prison  that  may  be 
helped  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  and  the  prayers  of 
the  faithful. 

St.  Mark  asserts  that  certain  signs  shall  follow  them 
that  believe.  The  Church  of  Rome  claims  that  there 
never  has  been  a  day  in  which  miracles  have  not  been 
granted  somewhere  in  her  vast  domain  for  the  comfort 
of  the  meek  and  childlike. 

Jesus  breathed  on  the  apostles  and  said,  Receive  ye 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Roman  bishops  suppose  themselves 
to  confer  the  Holy  Ghost  by  the  same  act  of  breathing 
upon  candidates. 

Whose  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted,  said  Jesus ; 
whose  ye  retain,  they  are  retained.  This  Roman 
Church  quietly  and  as  a  matter  of  course  forgives 
sins  and  pronounces  excommunications. 

I  might  easily  multiply  citations  of  this  sort.  Of 
course  I,  a  protestant,  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the 
claims  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  all  these 


A   GOOD    EDUCATOR.  1 3 

particulars  will  bear  investigation.  But  I  do  say  that 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  professes  to  give  mean- 
ing and  illustration  to  many  Scriptures  which  are  ordi- 
narily neglected  or  explained  away. 

8.  This  Roman  Catholic  Qvii5v.(ZY^  provides  excellent 
apparatus  for  the  icse  of  her  children  in  the  culticj-e  of 
virtue  and  piety. 

Alas !  I  cannot  say  that  her  children  use  the  appara- 
tus, or  that  her  gathered  multitudes  are  all  exemplary 
in  righteousness.  The  Lord  himself  chose  twelve  and 
taught  them,  and  yet  one  of  them  was  Judas.  The 
fault  was  not  of  Jesus  but  of  Judas. 

The  apparatus  of  spiritual  culture  in  a  Roman 
Catholic  Church  remind  me  vividly  of  our  best-ap- 
pointed schools.  The  attitude  of  the  Church  and  of 
her'  ministers  is  a  parental  attitude.  Mother  Church 
calls,  Conie^  my  children,  listen  to  my  words.  The  chil- 
dren do  not  always  come,  but  if  they  come  they  get 
help.  To  illustrate  what  I  mean,  let  me  read  to 
you  some  of  the  questions  by  which  a  Catholic  is 
advised  to  examine  himself  previous  to  confession. 
The  questions  are  numerous,  and  based  on  the  ten 
commandments,  one  by  one.  I  quote  from  those 
under  what  we  call  the  eighth  commandment :  — 

"Thou  shalt  not  steal. 

"  Have  you  been  guilty  of  steaHng,  or  cheating,  or 


14  ROMAN    CATHOLIC. 

"  any  way  wronging  your  neighbor  in  buying  or  selling, 
"  or  any  other  bargains  or  contracts  ? 

"  Have  you  been  accessory  to  another's  committing 
"  any  such  injustice  ?     How  often  ?     To  what  value  ? 

"Have  you  dishonestly  kept  what  belongs  to  an- 
"  other  ? 

"  Have  you  caused  any  damage  to  your  neighbor  in 
"  his  house,  cattle,  or  other  goods  ? 

"  Have  you  contracted  debts  without  design  to 
"pay  them  ;  or  without  prospect  of  being  able  to  pay 
"  them  ?  Have  you  delayed  or  refused  to  pay  your 
"  debts  when  you  were  able  ?  Have  you  by  prodigal 
"  expenses  made  yourself  unable,  and  so  wronged  your 
"  creditors  or  your  family? 

"  Have  you  been  guilty  of  usury  in  the  loan  of 
"  money  ? 

"  Have  you  put  off  false  money  ?  How  much  ?  How 
"  often  ? 

"Have  you  professed  any  art,  or  undertaken  any 
"  business,  without  sufficient  skill  or  knowledge  ?  What 
"  damage  has  your  neighbor  suffered  from  it  ? 

"  Have  you  bought  or  received  stolen  goods  ?  Or 
"  taken  of  those  who  could  not  [afford  to]  give  ? 

"Have  you  neglected  your  work  or  business  to 
"  which  you  were  hired  ?  Have  you  broken  your 
"promise  in  matters  of  consequence? 


PIOUS   CONFESSION.  1 5 

"  Have  you  neglected  or  delayed  to  make  restitution 
"  when  it  was  in  your  power  ? " 

Fellow-citizens !  These  are  close  questions  for  a  man 
to  ask  himself.  I  have  never  heard  any  preaching 
half  so  close.  And  under  each  commandment  the 
questions  are  equally  searching.  This  is  an  ear- 
nest church  that  sets  her  children  to  look  up  their 
sins  as  with  lighted  candles,  and  points  out  every 
crack  and  corner  where  sins  are  wont  to  hide.  Ex- 
amine yourselves  and  confess  your  sins !  All  this 
is  excellent. 

9.  The  sacrament  of  confession  is  of  peculiar  excellence 
and  profit  to  them  who  piously  use  the  same. 

That  a  child  does  well  to  confess  his  sins  to  a 
mother,  no  one  doubts.  That  a  husband  will  gain 
strength  by  confessing  his  sins  to  his  wife,  or  at  least 
so  many  of  them  as  she  can  understand,  no  one  will 
deny.  That  confession  is  profitable  is  self-evident. 
That  men  have  very  vague  and  shadowy  sense  of 
God  and  his  presence  ;  that  men  easily  call  them- 
selves in  a  general  way  miserable  offenders^  and  ask 
pardon  of  God  without  much  shame  or  sense  of  sin, 
we  all  know.  That  our  hearts  are  very  deceitful  and 
full  of  concealments  and  disguises,  we  all  know.  In 
short,  we  all  do  verily  know  that  a  hearty  confession 
of  sin  made  to  a  brother  man  whom  we  have  reason  to 


1 6  ROMAN    CATHOLIC. 

honor,  trust,  and  love,  is  a  very  profitable  act  toward 
reformation. 

Opening  the  New  Testament,  we  read  :  Confess 
your  faults  one  to  another,  and  pray  one  for  another. 
In  another  place  we  read  :  Whose  sins  soever  ye  re- 
mit, they  are  remitted  unto  them  ;  and  whose  soever 
sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained.  Thus,  by  Scripture 
and  by  consciousness,  we  are  taught  the  value  of  con- 
fession and  of  declared  absolution  as  helps  toward  a 
reformed  and  ennobled  living.  And  I  love  the  Cath- 
olic Church  for  her  brave  and  motherly  way  of  saying, 
— Coine^  C07ne,  my  children,  and  confess  yourselves. 

"Let  your  confession  be  hiunhle,  without  seeking 
"  excuses  for  your  sins,  or  flinging  the  fault  on  others  ; 
"  let  it  be  entire  as  to  the  kind  and  number  of  your 
"  sins,  and  such  circumstances  as  quite  change  the  na- 
"  ture  of  the  sin,  or  greatly  increase  its  guilt.  Be 
^^  modest  in  your  expressions,  and  take  care  not  to 
"  name  any  tJiird  person." 

After  a  general  and  a  special  confession  let  the  peni- 
tent say  :  — 

"For  these  and  all  other  my  sins  which  I  cannot 
"  at  this  time  call  to  my  remembrance,  I  am  heartily 
"  sorry ;  I  purpose  amendment  for  the  future,  and  most 
"  humbly  ask  pardon  of  God,  and  penance  and  absolu- 
"  tion  of  you,  my  ghostly  father. 


ECONOMICAL    WORKERS.  1/ 

"  While  the  priest  gives  you  absolution,  bow  down 
"your  head  and  with  great  humility  call  upon  Qod  for 
"  mercy ;  and  beg  of  him  that  he  would  be  pleased  to 
"  pronounce  the  sentence  of  absolution  in  heaven  while 
"  his  minister  absolves  you  upon  earth." 

There  may  possibly  be  vicious  priests  in  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  —  priests  unworthy  of  trust.  The  per- 
dition is  theirs  if  they  betray  the  Lord's  little  ones. 
One  thing  is  very  certain,  —  that  no  man  ever  yet 
confessed  his  sins  truly,  and  took  counsel  of  a  christian 
father  or  adviser,  but  he  was  at  once  a  happier  and 
a  better  man  for  it. 

lo.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  maintains  eccle- 
siastical^ educational,  ajid  missionary  ejiterprises  with 
reinarkable  and  excellent  economy. 

Her  unmarried  clergy  and  other  religious  men  and 
women  consecrated  to  church  work  develop  a  pro- 
digious amount  of  labor  at  an  incredibly  small  cost. 
To  a  consecrated  man  or  woman  money  is  no  object. 
Having  food  and  raiment  they  are  therewith  content. 
There  is  and  can  be  little  or  no  competition  among 
them.  Consequently  there  is  no  wasteful  expendi- 
ture. 

An  accomplished  scholar  spending  his  life  in  a  pro- 
fessor's chair,  earns  and  well  earns  from  two  to  three 
thousand  dollars  a  year.     An  equal  man  in  a  Roman 


1 8  ROMAN   CATHOLIC. 

Catholic  college  receives,  perhaps,  five  hundred 
dollars ! 

A  skilful  teacher  of  feminine  accomplishments  —  as 
music,  drawing,  embroidery,  French  —  commands  in 
our  fashionable  schools  from  five  to  fifteen  hundred 
dollars.  In  a  Roman  Catholic  school  an  equal  abil- 
ity is  provided  at  a  cost  of  from  two  hundred  and  fifty 
to  three  hundred  dollars. 

Vigorous  faultfinders  and  censors  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  must  admit  thus  much  at  least :  — - 
That,  because  of  the  consecration  of  her  many  thou- 
sand men  and  women,  the  Church  is  able  to  do 
a  vast  amount  of  work  at  comparatively  small  cost. 
And  further,  if  self-denial  and  voluntary  obedience 
and  poverty  are  evidence  of  sincerity,  or  better,  if 
they  are  graces  acceptable  with  God,  it  must  be  at 
once  admitted  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
exhibits  a  very  goodly  multitude  of  the  lowly-minded, 
the  obedient,  and  the  self-denying.  And  these  are 
excellent.     This  leads  naturally  to  — 

1 1 .  The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  albeit  no  7'espectey 
of  persons,  can  nevertheless  grade  and  classify  its  members, 
giving  to  each  one  a  position,  work,  and  digfiity  accordifig 
to  tefnper  and  ability. 

In  this  city,  as  in  all  our  cities,  the  Catholic 
Church  is  the  church  of  the  poor  and  of  the  hard- 


A   PLACE   FOR   ALL. 


19 


working.  Demagogues  may  have  taught  Irishmen  to 
despise  colored  men,  but  no  Catholic  priest  will  shut 
them  from  the  church  nor  turn  them  from  the  altar. 

Plain  or  even  ragged  and  soiled  apparel  may  be 
eyed  and  unwelcome  in  many  churches  of  thrifty,  well- 
to-do  Americans,  but  in  the  Catholic  Church  dress 
is  of  no  account  while  mass  is  saying. 

And  if  any  one,  touched  by  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
longs  to  work,  the  Catholic  Church  has  a  place  for 
man,  woman,  and  child.  Travelers  will  tell  you  that 
the  charities  of  Catholics  are  world  wide.  Where 
cholera  rages  and  the  pestilence  works  desolation, 
you  shall  find  brothers  and  sisters  of  mercy  nursing 
the  forsaken  and  shriving  the  dying. 

When  hell  vomits  fire  and  men  call  it  war,  like 
flowers  by  lava  streams  come  quickly  to  the  hot  edges 
of  devastation  the  meek  and  silent  sisters  of  charity. 
Before  the  buzzards  spot  the  sky  spying  their  prey, 
these  heavenly  doves  have  found  the  living,  comforted 
the  dying,  and  are  praying  for  the  dead  already 
buried. 

Citizens  of  Elmira  !  If  we  choose  to  inspect  this 
Catholic  Church,  to  search  out  and  mark  her  errors 
and  ransack  her  history  for  discreditable  passages,  we 
shall  succeed  as  well  as  they  do  when  they  look  for 
ours.     Lo,  I   propose  a  better  way.     Look  for  the 


20  ROMAN   CATHOLIC. 

good  that  belongs  to  her  and  you  shall  find  it  in  great 
measures.  Become  acquainted  with  her  best  com- 
municants, and  you  will  find  them  christians  of  like 
fears  and  like  hopes  with  the  best  in  our  own  and  in 
all  churches.  Possibly  the  time  may  never  come  in 
which  they  can  recognize  the  true  and  the  good  that 
is  with  us  and  with  others ;  for  which  very  reason 
others  should  be  the  happier  to  recognize  the  good 
that  is  with  them. 

Peace  be  upon  them  and  upon  the  whole  Israel  of 
God.     Amen. 


II. 


PRESBYTERIAN 


LECTURE    II. 

PRESBYTERIAN. 

"  Likewise,  ye  younger,  submit  yourselves  unto  the 
ELDER."  —  I  Peter  v.  5. 

THE  Greek  language  has  a  word  npia^vs  [presbus] 
which  means  old,  aged,  and  consequently  re- 
spectable, venerable.  The  comparative  degree  of  this 
adjective  is  Tvpea^vTepos  [presbuteros\  which  brings  us 
very  near  to  our  familiar  word  presbyterian^  and  to  the 
subject  of  this  lecture. 

If  we  were  accustomed  to  read  the  New  Testament 
in  Greek,  we  should  find  this  word  presbyieria7i  or  its 
equivalent  many  times  repeated.  Wherever  you  find 
elders  in  your  Testaments,  it  is  the  Greek  word  Trpeo-jSu- 
r^pos  or  an  inflection  of  it. 

Ye  rulers  of  the  people  and  elders  of  Israel  \^  presby- 
ters of  Israel.^*  Or  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son,t 
his  elder  son  was  in  the  field,  his  presbyter  son  was  in 
the  field.  Or,  to  Timothy  Paul  writes,  entreat  the 
elder  women  as  mothers,  the  presbyter  women.  %     In 

*  Acts  iv.  8.  t  Luke  xv.  25.  %  \  Tim.  v.  2. 


24  PRESBYTERIAN. 

Mark  we  read  of  the  priests  and  scribes  2LXi^  preshyiers 
who  had  sent  out  a  crowd  to  arrest  Jesus.*  And  in 
Matthew  we  read  that  Jesus  was  accused  of  the  chief 
priests  and  presbyters. '\ 

The  New  Testament  is  full  of  presbyterianism.  It 
is  by  far  the  oldest  and  very  clearly  the  only  natural 
social  order.     Ye  younger,  submit  yourselves  unto 

THE  ELDER. 

Any  society  that  is  guided  and  governed  by  its 
elder  members  is  properly  called  presbyterian.  If  it 
be  governed  by  the  whole  congregation  in  mass-meet- 
ing it  is  congregational.  If  it  be  governed  by  bishops, 
regardless  of  age  or  number,  then  it  is  episcopal. 

I  note  then  as  an  excellence  that  belongs  to  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  that :  — 

I.  The  Presbyterian  order  is  etninently  ancient y 
natural,  sefisible,  and  Scriptural. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  in  Adam's  family  the  younger 
were  to  submit  to  the  elder ;  and  they  did  so  until 
Cain  killed  his  brother  and  became  independent. 
We  know  surely  that  the  congregation  of  Israel  was 
organized  presbyterially,  and  governed  by  a  council  of 
elders.  This  great  original  presbytery  was  organized 
by  Moses  at  the  suggestion  of  Jethro,  his  father-in- 
law.     And  this  natural  and  wise  control  given  to  the 

*  Mark  xiv.  43.  t  Matt,  xxvii.  12. 


A   NATURAL   ORDER.  25 

elders  over  the  people  continued  in  Israel  down  to  the 
days  of  Jesus,  and  beyond  them,  affecting  through  the 
presbyterian  synagogue,  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

Citizens  and  brethren  !  We  have  used  this  word 
presbyterian  as  a  proper  name  so  long  that  we  have 
forgotten  its  meaning.  We  have  so  long  reckoned  an 
elder  a  mere  officer,  that  we  have  forgotten  that  elder 
means  older. 

But  there  are  many  passages  in  the  New  Testament 
in  which  this  same  slipping  sense  perplexes  us,  and  we 
cannot  say  positively  whether  the  language  means  an 
older  man  or  an  official  man.  Rebuke  not  an  elder, 
but  intreat  him  as  a  father.*  Does  this  protect  age  or 
an  officer  ?  Paul  sent  to  Ephesus  and  called  the  elders 
of  the  church,  t  Does  this  mean  old  men  of  the  church 
or  officers  of  the  church,  which  .?     We  cannot  say. 

But  in  my  lecture  this  evening  I  am  to  speak  of 
something  more  than  this  etymologic  and  theoretic 
presbyterianism.  We  have  two  meeting-houses  in  this 
city,  and  two  churches,  called  Presbyterian.  And  it 
is  of  the  denomination  which  they  represent  that  I  am 
to  speak  the  praises,  because  of  excellencies.  I  have 
already  shown,  under  the  first  head,  how  excellent  and 
natural  the  presbyterian  theory  is.     And  now  :  — 

Who  are  Presbyterians  in  this  country  ?    Presby- 

*  I  Tim.  V.  I.  t  Acts  xx.  17. 

2 


26  PRESBYTERIAN. 

TERiANS  are  properly  all  those  who  regulate  and  con- 
trol church  affairs  by  elders,  —  ruling  elders  and  teach- 
ing elders,  who  are  ordained  and  organized  into  judi- 
catories, rising  higher  and  higher  in  dignity  and  au- 
thority, and  including  larger  and  larger  territory  under 
their  jurisdiction.  The  usual  names  for  these  judica- 
catories  are  :  sessio?i  for  a  church  ;  presbytery  for  three 
or  more  churches  in  a  district  j  syfiod  for  three  or 
more  presbyteries ;  and  general  assembly  of  commis- 
sioners from  every  presbytery  in  the  land. 

But  in  addition  to  this  simple  and  excellent  church 
order,  Presbyterians  hold  fast  a  confession  of  faith 
and  two  catechisms,  usually  called  the  Westminster 
confession  or  symbols.  These  standards  are  the  pro- 
duction of  a  great  company  of  English  ministers  and 
laymen,  with  four  or  five  delegates  from  Scotland. 
They  were  called  together  by  the  famous  long  parlia- 
ment in  1543.  And  they  did  much  work;  they  came 
-very  near  making  the  Presbyterian  Church  the 
established  church  of  England. 

In  this  famous  assembly  Presbyterians  and  con- 
gregationists  sat  and  voted  side  by  side.  And  when 
in  after  years  both  denominations  were  humbled  by 
persecution,  their  ministers  came  together  in  London, 
and  both  parties  gave  up  their  old  names  and  took  for 
their  common  denominator  "United  Brethren." 


THE    CREED   AND    CATECHISM.  2/ 

In  this  country  it  has  always  been  difficult  to  keep 
the  fences  in  good  repair  between  the  congregationists 
and  Presbyterians.  In  New  England,  the  two  words 
used  to  mean  the  same  thing.  But  of  late  more  atten- 
tion has  been  given  to  fence-building,  with  painful  suc- 
cess. The  name  United  Brethren  is  no  longer 
needed. 

Having  given  you  thus  a  very  meagre  sketch  of 
Presbyterian  polity  and  the  origin  of  its  doctrine,  I 
can  now  speak  of  a  second  excellence  of  Presbyte- 
rianism. 

2.  The  creed  and  catechism  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  as  put  into  the  ha?ids  of  its  members  is  more 
hvadly  based  on  holy  Scriptuix,  and  more  copiously  il- 
lustrated by  citations  of  the  text,  than  any  other  symbol 
of  doctrine  that  I  have  ever  met. 

This  is  as  it  should  be.  For  "the  supreme  Judge," 
say  these  Presbyterians,  "  by  whom  all  controversies 
"  of  religion  are  to  be  determined,  and  all  decrees  of 
*'  councils,  opinions  of  ancient  writers,  doctrines  of 
*'  men,  and  private  spirits  are  to  be  examined  ;  and  in 
"  whose  sentence  we  are  to  rest ;  can  be  no  other  but 
"  the  Holy  Spirit  speaking  in  the  Scripture."  It  is  well, 
therefore,  that  the  creed  and  catechisms  of  a  church 
that  puts  so  high  an  estimate  on  Scripture  should  be 
grounded  and  built  upon  many  and  strong  quotations. 


28  PRESBYTERIAN. 

A  careful  student  of  what  is  pleasantly  called  the 
little  Blue-book  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  will 
find  that  the  marginal  notes,  which  are  all  of  them 
quoted  from  the  Bible,  serve^dmirably  as  a  concord- 
ance, by  help  of  which  almost  any  Scripture  that  re- 
lates to  personal  piety  or  systematic  theology  may 
be  readily  found.  And  although,  in  one  or  two  mi- 
nor particulars,  I  cannot  accept  the  doctrine  of  these 
creeds  or  teach  them,  (nor  in  all  my  life  have  I  ever 
seen  a  man  that  did  accept  or  teach  all  the  articles 
of  these  creeds,)  yet  they  are,  for  substance  of  doc- 
trine, a  most  excellent  digest  of  Scripture.  And  no 
person  that  would  merit  the  name  of  an  intelligent  chris- 
tian disciple  can  afford  to  dispense  with  this  manual 
of  instruction,  based  as  it  is  upon  the  Word  of  God. 

Its  ver^'  faults  grow  out  of  his  excellencies.  Its 
garblings  and  misapplials  of  Scripture  are  the  result  of 
the  unusual  familiarity  of  the  fathers  with  the  words  of 
the  received  version,  and  the  habit  they  had  in  com- 
mon with  pious  Israelites  of  thinking  and  talking  in 
Scripture  phrases. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  many  families  belonging  to 
the  Presbyterian  Church  are  not  aware  of  the  ex- 
cellencies of  this  little  book  of  sound  doctrine.  It  is 
to  be  feared  that  there  are  many  Presbyterian  families 
that  do  not  own  it,  and  others  who  have  never  so  much 


NORMAL  PROTESTANT  ORDER.        29 

as  seen  it  or  heard  it  read.  Very  few  christians  make 
use  of  the  privileges  which  are,  pecuHarly  their  own. 
Nearly  all  of  our  churches  are  more  prompt  to  resent 
an  assault  made  upon  their  precious  things,  than  they 
are  to  make  good  use  of  them  in  daily  discipline,  and 
illustrate  their  excellence  in  daily  conversation. 

But  however  neglected  and  unknown  these  West- 
minster symbols  may  be  among  the  people  called 
Presbyterian,  they  are  nevertheless  peculiarly  excel- 
lent in  being  broadly  based  on  holy  Scripture,  and 
copiously  illustrated  by  citations  of  the  text. 

3.  Presbyterian  ordar  is  the  true  and  original  type 
of  protestant  organization. 

The  churches  at  the  Reformation  fell  naturally  into 
Presbyterian  order;  and  at  this  day,  whenever  protest- 
ants  undertake  any  organization  at  all,  they  tend  to- 
ward Presbyterianism.  It  is  very  difficult  to  keep 
from  slipping  into  it.  I  do  not  say  Presbyterian 
doctrine,  but  Presbyterian  order. 

Thus  a  methodist  rejoices  in  an  official  board,  or 
session;  a  quarterly  conference,  preachers'  meeting 
or  presbytery ;  an  annual  conference  or  synod ;  a 
general  conference  or  general  assembly.  As  soon  as 
lay  members  are  admitted  to  these  bodies,  there  will 
be  no  substantial  difference  between  the  methodist 
order  and  the  Presbyterian. 


30  PRESBYTERIAN. 

Congregationists  have  a  church  committee  for  ses- 
sion ;  association  for  presbytery ;  general  association 
for  synod  ;  general  council  for  general  assembly.  And 
whenever  congregational  ministers  get  together,  they 
usually  have  one  of  their  number  on  guard  as  a  censor, 
to  keep  the  brethren  from  talking  Presbyterian  words 
and  acting  Presbyterian  acts.  As  Darwin  would  say, 
all  protestant  varieties  show  a  tendency  to  revert  to  the 
Presbyterian  original.     We  all  take  to  it  naturally. 

4.  The  Presbyterian  zV,  m  my  judgmc?ii,  the  church 
order  which  can  be  7nost  easily  illustrated  and  justified 
by  the  New  Testament. 

I  do  not  mean  that  all  the  four  grades  of  judicatory 
now  known  as  Presbyterian  can  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament,  grade  for  grade  ;  but  only  that  the  elements 
of  this  system  are  apparent  and  more  easily  found, 
than  the  elements  of  any  other  system.  There  is  diffi- 
culty in  explaining  and  harmonizing  all  that  the  New 
Testament  teaches  us  as  to  apostolic  usage  and  early 
church  order ;  all  of  us  are  tempted  to  stretch  some 
Scriptures  and  shrink  others  in  order  to  justify  our 
own  usages.  But  in  my  judgment  the  Presbyterian 
has  need  to  stretch  and  shrink  and  explain  his  proof- 
texts  far  less  frequently  than  any  other  denominational 
christian  that  I  know  of  The  Roman  catholic  who 
tries  to  prove  his  hierarchy  at  one  extreme,  and  the 


AVOIDS   EXTREMES.  $1 

quaker  and  independent  who  try  to  prove  personal 
sufficiency  at  the  other  extreme,  have  hard  work  of  it, 
both  of  them.  But  the  Presbyterian  sails  through 
the  New  Testament  with  the  wind  free  and  every  sail 
drawing,  —  his  navigation  is  easy.  This  suggests. 
Scripture  aside :  — 

5.  Presbyterianism  is  a  happy  mean  between  spirit- 
ual despotism  aiid  spiritual  lawlessness. 

We  have  a  session,  using  all  the  authority  that  should 
ever  be  exercised  by  a  christian  church  over  its  mem- 
bers, —  a  session  of  ruling  elders.  At  the  same  time 
this  session,  having  been  elected  by  the  people,  can 
with  great  difficulty  be  induced  to  become  lords  over 
God's  heritage.  Meanwhile,  lest  the  session  level 
downward,  and  wallow  in  error  and  democratic  license, 
several  churches  are  associated,  and  the  acts  of  session 
are  reviewed  and  criticised  by  presbytery. 

To  avoid  falling  into  localisms  and  provincialisms, 
we  have  synod  and  assembly,  and  with  them  all  that 
shadowy  sublimity  which  so  satisfies  feeble  minds,  that 
need  to  feel  that  they  are  not  mere  church-goers  in  a 
little  meeting-house,  depending  upon  God,  but  mem- 
bers also  of  the  great  Presbyterian  Church.  Thus 
in  Presbyterianism  we  have  a  happy  mean  between 
despotism  and  anarchy,  —  an  ecclesiastical  republic. 
This  fact  suggests  :  — 


32  PRESBYTERIAN. 

6.  Presbyterianism  is  in  striking  agreetnent  with  the 
political  order  of  these  Uftited  States. 

All  our  laws  are  enacted  in  the  name  of  the  people 
by  elected  representatives  of  the  people.  The  people 
do  not  pretend  to  govern  themselves.  We  are  con- 
tent with  a  representative  system.  If,  as  many  sup- 
pose, it  be  at  all  desirable  that  the  institutions  of  the 
church  and  of  the  state  should  be  in  harmony,  then, 
beyond  all  question,  Presbyterian  or  representative 
government  is  the  church  order  most  nearly  in  accord 
with  our  state  and  national  usage. 

But  you  will  ask  me  :  What  special  religions  quality 
or  excellence  marks  the  Presbyterian  Church? 
What  particular  truth  does  she  emphasize  ?  I  cannot 
tell  you.  Protestant  churches  are  so  nearly  identical 
in  their  religious  doctrine  that  no  fair-minded  man  can 
choose  between  them.  They  are  so  much  alike  that  a 
teachable  stranger  has  need  to  inquire,  at  close  of  ser- 
vice, with  what  church  he  has  been  worshiping. 

If  urgently  pressed  to  name  some  characteristic  of 
the  denomination,  some  quality  emphasized  by  it  more 
incessantly  than  by  any  other,  I  might  venture  to 
say :  — 

7.  The  Presbyterians  are  inclined  to  give  tmiisual 
emphasis  to  law,  and  conscience,  and  duty. 

The  pecmle  as  a  whole  are  more  sober,  and  on  Sun- 


MAGNIFIES    LAW   AND    DUTY.  33 

days  more  solemn,  than  the  people  of  some  sister  de- 
nominations. The  Roman  catholic  finds  mystery  and 
awe  in  religion.  The  Presbyterian  finds  duty  and 
law.  The  catholic  makes  much  of  salvation  by  Christ. 
The  Presbyterian  makes  much  of  pardon  and  justi- 
fication by  Christ. 

On  the  whole  we  may  say  that  the  Presbyterian 
Church  is  the  church  of  sobriety,  solemnity,  and 
decorum.  Not  that  other  churches  are  destitute  of 
these  qualities,  but  that  this  Church  illustrates  them 
conspicuously. 

But  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  Church  is  a 
narrow  or  bigoted  church.  Like  all  other  churches 
she  is  afflicted  here  and  there  by  little,  narrow  men, 
who  misrepresent  the  genius  and  doctrine  of  the 
Church  ;  and  the  Mother  suffers  because  of  her  blun- 
dering sons.  I  therefore  gladly  note,  as  an  excel- 
* 

lence  of  the  Presbyterians  :  — 

8.  T/ieir  coinprehejisive  and  elastic  acceptance  of  other 
christians  as  mei7ihers  with  them  of  the  church  of  Christ. 

But  one  denomination  that  I  know  of  can  equal  the 
Presbyterian  in  preparation  for  christian  union  at 
any  moment. 

The  Presbyterian  declares  that  "  God  alone  is 
"  Lord  of  the  conscience,  and  hath  left  it  free  from  the 
"  teachings  and  commandments  of  men  which  are  in 
2*  c 


34  PRESBYTERIAN. 

"  anything  contrary  to  his  Word.  Therefore,  they  con- 
"  sider  the  rights  of  private  judgment  in  all  matters 
"  that  respect  religion  as  universal  and  inalienable." 

They  also  believe  that  there  "  are  truths  and  forms 
"  with  respect  to  which  men  of  good  character  and 
"  principles  may  differ.  And  in  all  these,  they  think  it 
"  the  duty  of  private  christians  and  of  societies  to  ex- 
"  ercise  mutual  forbearance." 

Listen  to  the  invitation  which  a  Presbyterian 
gives  to  the  sacrament :  — 

"  He  (the  minister)  shall  invite  to  the  Lord's  table 
"  such  as,  being  sensible  of  their  lost  and  helpless  state 
"  by  sin,  depend  upon  the  atonement  of  Christ  for  pardon 
"  and  acceptance  with  God ;  such  as,  being  instructed 
"  in  the  gospel-doctrine,  have  a  competent  knowledge 
"  to  discern  the  Lord's  body  j  and  such  as  desire  to 
"renounce  their  sins  and  are  determined  to  lead  a 
"  holy  and  Godly  life." 

Some  of  you  may  be  comforted  to  know  how  large 
the  welcome  given  by  a  true  Presbyterian  to  his  child- 
ren in  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  He  agrees  with 
the  episcopal,  the  Roman  catholic,  and  the  Lutheran 
in  his  love  of  children.     See  :  — 

"  Children  born  within  the  pale  of  the  Church 
"  and  dedicated  to  God  in  baptism,  are  under  the  in- 
"  spection  and  government  of  the  Church  ;  and  are 


SENIOR   CHURCH    IN   ELMIRA.  35 

"  to  be  taught  to  read  and  repeat  the  catechism,  the 
"  apostles'  creed,  and  the  Lord's  prayer.  They  are  to 
"  be  taught  to  pray,  to  abhor  sin,  to  fear  God,  and  to 
"  obey  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  when  they  come 
"  to  years  of  discretion,  if  they  be  free  from  scandal, 
"  appear  sober  and  steady,  and  to  have  sufficient 
"  knowledge  to  discern  the  Lord's  body,  they  ought  to 
"  be  informed  that  it  is  their  duty  and  their  privilege 
"  to  come  to  the  Lord's  supper." 

Citizens  of  Elmira!  The  oldest  church  and  the 
largest  meeting-house  in  this  city  are  called  Presby- 
terian. By  right  of  seniority,  to  this  old  first  church 
belongs  the  title.  The  Church  of  Christ  in  Elmira. 
In  essentials,  all  true  christians  are  in  accord  with 
her.  In  non-essentials,  all  Presbyterians  worthy  of 
their  honored  name  set  us  a  grand  example  of  com- 
prehensiveness and  charity. 

Peace  be  upon  them,  and  upon  all  that  anywhere 
call  upon  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.     Amen. 


III. 
PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL. 


LECTURE  III. 

PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

"Let  another  man  praise  thee,  and  not  thine  own 
MOUTH ;  a  stranger,  and  not  thine  own  lips."  —  Prov. 
xxvii.  2. 

IF  any  man,  however  deserving,  begin  to  show  off 
and  brag,  speaking  often  of  his  past  record  and 
pubHc  services,  he  makes  himself  offensive.  But  when 
a  general  gives  credit  to  his  brother  generals,  and 
ascribes  victory  to  their  wisdom  and  to  the  valor  of 
the  army,  then  all  are  pleased.  Such  words  are  twice 
useful, —  they  profit  him  who  speaks  and  them  of 
whom  they  are  spoken. 

In  something  the  same  way  we  are  offended  when 
we  hear  or  read  the  words  which  churchmen  speak 
in  praise  each  of  his  own  church  or  denomination. 
They  seem  conceited,  arrogant,  offensive.  They  pro- 
mote vain-glory  at  home  and  ill-will  abroad. 

But  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  christian  pastors  and 
prelates  might  at  least  be  as  courteous  one  to  another 
as  army  officers  are !     And  if  we  would  silence  our 


40  PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

own  boastfulness,  and  note  and  praise  the  beauty  of 
our  sister  churches  more,  there  might  come  to  pass 
among  christian  people  a  smiling  charity  and  peaceful 
rejoicing. 

I  invite  you,  therefore,  this  evening,  to  view  the 
beauty,  the  uses,  and  the  truth  that  belong  to  those 
christians  among  us  who  are  popularly  called 

EPISCOPALIANS. 

In  this  city  there  are  four  kinds  of  church  that 
have  bishops,  and  therefore  may  call  themselves  epis- 
copal :  viz.  Roman  episcopal,  Protestant  Episcopal, 
methodist  episcopal,  and  American  methodist  epis- 
copal Zion. 

Only  one  of  these  is  generally  known  as  the 
Episcopal  Church,  viz.  the  Protestant  Episcopal, 
represented  in  this  city  by  two  parishes  and  a  mis- 
sion. 

This  Episcopal  Church  in  America  is  in  fact  a 
continuation  of  the  church  of  England,  As  gardeners 
lay  down  a  branch  of  a  vine  and  stake  it  fast  and 
cover  it  till  it  takes  root,  and  then  cut  it  off  and  leave 
it  to  grow  by  its  own  roots  ;  so  the  Episcopal  Church 
in  this  land  was  a  branch  of  the  church  of  England, 
which  was  laid  down  and  rooted  ;  and  by  the  war  of 


UNLIKE  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.     4 1 

the  Revolution  was  cut  off,  to  grow  ever  since  with 
roots  of  its  own. 

The  Church  in  America  differs  from  the  church 
of  England  in  those  matters  chiefly  that  must  needs 
have  been  changed  because  these  states  ceased  to  be 
colonies  and  became  a  federal  nation  with  a  new  and 
differing  political  constitution.  Instead  of  king,  the 
Churchman  in  America  says  president;  for  parlia- 
ment, congress.  He  needs  a  prayer  quite  new  for  his 
legislature  and  governor,  for  in  England  there  are  none 
such.  But  he  drops  all  mention  of  the  gunpowder 
plot,  the  martyrdom  of  Charles*  I.,  the  accession  and 
happy  reign  of  our  sovereign  lady,  queen  Victoria ; 
and  all  other  strictly  English  events. 

The  American  Churchman  omits,  too,  the  Athana- 
sian  creed,  so  called,  which  is  long  and  true,  but  has 
a  dry  and  funny  rattle  to  it  that  makes  irreverent 
people  smile. 

Of  all  the  protestant  churches,  the  Episcopal  best 
deserves  the  name  reformed  She  preserves  so  many 
of  the  usages  and  excellences  of  the  Roman  church, 
and  so  few  of  her  errors,  that  is  easy  to  see  that  she  is 
a  reformed  church.  Other  protestant  churches  seem 
revolutionary  rather  than  reformed. 

"  The  Reformation "  was,  in  England,  more  than 
tAvo  hundred  years  long.     There  w^ere  no  volcanic  con- 


42  PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

vulsions  :  no  one  brilliant  fourth-of-July  day  in  which 
the  great  reform  was  proclaimed.  Nor  was  the  refor- 
mation purely  and  disinterestedly  religious. 

When  the  pope  (Urban  V.,  1365)  demanded  large 
sums  of  money  in  payment  of  tribute  long  in  arrear, 
parliament  gave  willing  ear  to  the  reformer,  WicklifTe, 
who  denied  the  authority  of  Rome,  and  so  excused 
the  nation  from  paying  its  debt.  Afterward  (1380) 
this  same  great  man  finished  a  translation  of  the 
Latin  Bible  into  English.  He  wrote  tracts  for  the 
people.  He  revived  preaching  to  the  people.  His 
disciples  went  diligently  up  and  down  the  land,  teach- 
ing and  preaching  the  truth  and  the  authority  of  holy 
Scripture. 

Thus,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Luther 
was  heard  of  as  a  revolutionary  reformer  (15 18),  the 
leaven  of  Bible  reading  and  private  thinking  was  at 
work  among  the  English  people. 

But  the  church  of  England  was  still  Roman  cath- 
olic, notwithstanding  the  work  that  was  going  on 
among  the  people.  The  followers  of  Wickliffe,  known 
in  history  as  Lollards,  furnished  thousands  of  names 
to  the  bishops'  lists  of  heretics,  elsewhere  known  as 
the  noble  army  of  martyrs. 

During  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  (1534),  the  church 
in  England  was  declared  independent  of  Rome.     This 


KING   HENRY   VIII.  43 

was  perhaps  the  crisis  of  the  Enghsh  reformation. 
King  Henry  was  a  man  not  unlike  famous  king  David, 
in  his  love  of  woman,  his  domestic  troubles,  his  tem- 
pestuous piety,  and  intermittent  conscientiousness.  He 
was  a  many-sided,  large-patterned  man  ;  a  riddle  to  all 
small-eyed  writers  of  history. 

This  singular  king,  having  married  his  brother's 
widow  by  special  permission  of  the  church  of  Rome, 
by  and  by  applied  to  that  same  church  to  declare  the 
marriage  unlawful;  and  when  the  bishop  of  Rome 
would  not  grant  this  required  divorce,  Henry,  the 
headstrong  and  hearty,  declared  it  himself,  married 
again,  laughed  at  his  own  excommunication,  caused 
himself' to  be  proclaimed  supreme  head  of  the  church 
of  England,  and  to  prove  that  in  these  steps  he  was 
quite  right,  he  cut  off  any  man's  head  who  should  dis- 
pute  or   deny  the   same :  —  e.  g.   Sir  Thomas  More 

(1534)-  , 

Here  then  we  come  to  a  church  independent  of 
Rome,  but  not  yet  reformed.  The  Bible  was  in  many 
churches,  yet  men  not  a  few  were  slain  for  reading  it 
and  talking  it.  Among  these,  William  Tyndale  de- 
serves mention ;  for  he  translated  the  New  Testa- 
ment into  felicitous  English,  and  published  much  wise 
doctrine,  in  consequence  of  which  he  was  duly 
strangled  and  burned. 


44  *        PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL. 

The  king  multiplied  Bibles,  but  cut  off  Bible  read 
ers. 

After  Henry  and  his  stormy  ways  came  pious  and 
gentle  Edward  VI.  to  the  throne,  and  at  once  the 
flower  of  reform  began  to  blossom,  and  the  church  to 
show  the  features  which  she  wears  to-day. 

The  English  Bible  was  read  as  now  by  lessons  at 
morning  and  evening  service.  The  general  liturgy  was 
translated  and  said  in  English.  The  creed  of  the 
Church  was  packed  in  forty-two  articles,  afterwards 
reduced  to  the  famous  thirty-nine.  Accordantly,  both 
the  bread  and  the  wine  were  given  to  the  common 
people  at  the  sacrament,  and  other  reforms  and  purify- 
ings  were  set  afoot. 

Edward's  reign  was  a  short  one  (1547-53),  long 
enough  to  introduce  these  changes,  yet  short  enough  to 
prevent  the  protestants  from  getting  too  much  head- 
way. 

After  him  came  the  pious  and  conscientious  but 
gloomy  and  unhappy  queen  Mary,  who  strove  to  bring 
the  realm  of  England  back  to  Rome.  She  caused 
persuasive  fires  to  be  kindled  for  the  good  of  dissenting 
souls.  She  did  what  she  could,  but  she  could  not  undo 
the  reformation.  Parliament  and  the  people  were 
too  much  for  her.  But  her  opposition  kept  the  re- 
formers from  running  into  extravagance  and  cruelty. 


FIRST   AMERICAN   PARISH.  45 

After  Mary  came  Elizabeth,  who  caused  Roman 
catholics  at  one  extreme  and  puritans  at  the  other  to 
feel  her  scorn,  and  suffer  fines,  imprisonment,  and 
death. 

Then  came  James  I.  of  England,  by  whose  order 
our  present  Bible  was  prepared  and  printed  and  au- 
thorized. 

Thus  from  reign  to  reign  the  church  of  England 
has  come  down,  acquiring  little  by  little  her  present 
shape,  and  laying  off  the  corruption  and  unreason  of 
the  Roman  church,  as  formerly  existing  and  adminis- 
tered in  a  rude  age. 

The  prayer-book  may  be  called  substantially  com- 
plete as  we  now  have  it,  in  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  (1661).  Thus  this  church  of  Eng- 
land spent  nearly  three  hundred  years  on  her  work 
of  purifying  and  simplifying.  And  of  all  protestant 
churches  therefore  she  best  deserves  the  name  re- 
formed. 

In  this  country,  the  first  parish  of  this  Church  was 
probably  that  in  Jamestown,  Virginia  (1606  or  1608). 
Down  to  the  war  of  the  Revolution  the  Church  in  this 
land  was  under  the  care  of  the  bishops  of  London. 

Shortly  after  the  Revolution  an  application  was 
made  to  parliament  to  allow  an  American  bishop  to  be 
consecrated.     But  the  puritans  and  presbyterians  op- 


46  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL. 

posed  the  proposition,  and  so  Mr.  Seabury,  the  candi- 
date, had  to  put  up  with  a  second-rate  consecration  at 
the  hands  of  certain  Scotch  bishops.  But  at  last 
(1787)  parliament  allowed  the  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury to  consecrate  three  regular,  first-class  bishops  for 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia  respectively. 
Since  then  the  holy  unction  has  not  been  allowed  to 
fail.  With  pious  care  it  has  been  propagated.  And 
the  Episcopal  Church  in  these  United  States  stands 
to-day  as  truly  and  regularly  in  the  line  of  apostolic  suc- 
cession as  the  church  of  England  herself. 

After  this  mere  outline  of  her  history  it  remains  that 
I  note  some  of  her  excellent  uses  and  beauties. 

I.  The  Episcopal  Church  offers  for  our  use  the  most 
venerable  liturgy  in  the  English  tongue. 

The  devotional  treasures  of  the  Roman  catholic 
church  are  locked  up.  Her  matchless  literature  is 
embalmed  and  buried  in  Latin.  But  in  English  there 
are  no  lessons,  gospels,  psalms,  collects,  confessions, 
thanksgivings,  prayers,  —  in  one  word,  no  religious 
FORM-BOOK,  —  that  can  stand  a  moment  in  comparison 
with  the  prayer-book  of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  the 
twofold  quality  of  richness  and  age. 

The  proper  name,  because  truly  descriptive,  for 
this  Church,  would  be  Church  of  the  prayer-book. 


AN  EXCELLENT  PRAYER-BOOK.        4/ 

As  is  the  way  with  all  other  churches,  so  here,  the 
Church  champions  and  leaders  have  many  wise  things 
to  say  about  the  Church  and  her  prerogative.  But 
the  pious  multitude  that  frequent  her  courts  are  drawn 
thither  mostly  by  love  of  the  prayers  and  praises, 
the  litanies  and  lessons  of  the  prayer-book. 

And,  brethren  of  every  name,  I  certify  you  that 
you  rarely  hear  in  any  church  a  prayer  spoken  in  Eng- 
lish, that  is  not  indebted  to  this  prayer-book  for  some 
of  its  choicest  phrases. 

And  further  :  I  doubt  that  life  has  in  store  for  any 
of  you  an  uplift  so  high  or  downfall  so  deep  but 
that  you  can  find  company  for  your  soul  and  fitting 
words  for  your  lips  among  the  treasures  of  this  book 
of  common  prayer. 

In  all  tune  of  our  irihiilation  ;  m  all  time  of  our  pros- 
perity ;  in  the  hour  of  death  a?tdm  the  day  of  judg- 
ment :  Good  Lord  deliver  us. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  prayer-book  and  its  use,  I 
note  :  — 

2.  The  Episcopal  Church  preserves  a  high  grade 
of  dignity  J  decency^  propriety^  and  per7nanence  in  her 
public  offices. 

In  nearly  every  newspaper  you  may  read  some 
funny  story  based  upon  the  ignorance,  or  the  eccen- 
tricity, or  blasphemous  familiarity  of  some  extempo- 


4^  PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

rizing  prayer-maker.  All  of  you  here  present  have 
been  at  some  time  shocked  or  bored  by  public  devo- 
tional performances.  Nothing  of  this  sort  ever  occurs 
in  the  Episcopal  Church.  ^  All  things  are  done 
decently  and  in  order. 

And  so  too  of  permanence  and  its  accumulating 
worth  of  holy  association ;  no  transient  observer  can 
adequately  value  this  treasure  of  a  birthright  Church- 
man. 

To  be  using  to-day  the  self-same  words  that  have 
through  the  centuries  declared  the  faith  or  made 
known  the  prayer  of  that  mighty  multitude  who,  being 
now  delivered  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh,  are  in  joy 
and  felicity :  — 

To  be  baptized  in  early  infancy,  and  never  to  have 
known  a  time  when  we  were  not  recognized  and 
welcomed  among  the  millions  who  have  entered  the 
Church  by  the  same  door  :  — 

To  be,  in  due  time,  confirmed  in  a  faith  that  has 

sustained  a  noble  army  of  confessors,  approving  its 

worth  through  persecutions  and  prosperities,  a  strength 

•  to  the  tried  and  a  chastening  to  the  worldly-minded : — 

To  be  married  by  an  authority  before  which  kings 
and  peasants  bow  alike,  asking  benediction  upon  the 
covenant  that,  without  respect  of  persons,  binds  by 
the  same  words  of  duty  the  highest  and  the  lowest :  — 


APOSTOLIC    SUCCESSION.  49 

To  bring  our  new-born  children  as  we  were  brought, 
to  begin  where  we  began  and  to  grow  up  to  fill  our 
places  :  — 

To  die  in  the  faith  and  almost  hear  the  gospel  words 
soon  to  be  spoken  over  our  own  graves,  as  over  the 
thousand  times  ten  thousand  of  them  who  are  asleep 
in  Jesus  :  — 

In  short,  to  be  a  devout  and  consistent  Church- 
man, brings  a  man  through  aisles  fragrant  with  holy 
association,  and  companied  by  a  long  procession  of 
the  good,  chanting  as  they  go  a  unison  of  piety  and 
hope,  until  they  come  to  the  holy  place  where  shining 
saints  shall  sing  the  new  song  of  the  redeemed.  And 
these  sing  with  them. 

Another  excellence  I  note  :  — 

3.  The  Episcopal  Church  furnishes  to  all  who 
need  such  comfort,  the  assurance  of  aii  organic  and  un- 
broken unity  a?td  succession  from  Jesus  Christ,  through 
the  apostles,  by  a  line  of  authentic  bishops,  down  to  bishop 
Huntington  of  this  diocese. 

King  Henry  VIII.  and  queen  Elizabeth,  with  their 
proclamations  and  parliaments,  are  so  conspicuous, 
and  fill  so  much  space  in  the  merely  political  history 
of  the  English  church,  that  many  able  writers  deny 
that  the  river  of  apostolic  succession,  so  dammed  by 
them,  could  ever  get  around  the  dam  and  flow  along 
3  ,  D 


50  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL. 

again  pure  and  uncontaminated.  I  cannot  decide 
this  question  absolutely.     What  I  say  is  this  :  — 

The  aiDostolic  succession  in  the  Episcopal  Church 
can  be  traced  back  so  many  hundred  years  into  the 
dim  past,  that  it  is  no  shame  to  any  common  man  to 
say,  I  believe  it  to  extend  back  to  Peter,  Paul,  and  John ; 
and  he  who  verily  believes  that  the  ordaining  or  con- 
firming hand  of  the  bishop  of  his  diocese  is  electric 
with  the  spiritual  life  that  proceeds  from  Jesus  of 
Galilee,  will  find  it  a  hand  of  virtue  and  worth.  He 
who  doubts  will  find  it  a  hand  of  form  and  cere- 
mony. 

And  so  without  stopping  to  decide  the  question 
whether  our  bishop  is  really  a  successor  of  Paul  or 
John,  I  say  that  the  Episcopal  Church  affords  so 
much  evidence  that  she  has  in  her  episcopate  the  true 
succession,  that  it  is  no  shame  to  a  common  man  to 
believe  her.  And  if  he  believes  in  his  bishop  he  will 
get  from  him  all  the  benefit  that  can  come  from 
bishops. 

Brethren,  many  needy  souls  are  not  able  to  lay  hold 
upon  God  one  by  one.  They  cannot  appropriate  a 
gospel  promise  to  themselves.  Like  Job  of  old,  they 
say,  If  I  had  called  and  he  had  answered  me,  yet  zvould 
I  not  believe  that  he  had  hearkened  unto  my  voice. 

Such  extreme  and  exemplary  humility  asks  for  and 


PROVIDES    GOOD    DRILL.  5 1 

needs  a  church  ark  and  the  humble  place  and  privi- 
lege of  a  private  passenger  —  the  ark  of  God  that  shall 
outride  the  deluge.  The  church  of  Christ  in  which  is 
found  salvation. 

I  say,  then,  that  the  claims  of  this  Episcopal 
Church  to  be  such  an  ark  of  God,  or  church  of 
Christ,  endowed  with  sacraments,  absolutions,  and 
profitable  authority,  are  for  all  practical  uses  valid. 

I  leave  historians  and  ecclesiastics  to  their  endless 
words,  and  assert  that  the  poor  in  spirit  who  seek 
comfort  and  salvation  through  the  offices  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church  are  as  well  off  in  her  as  they  can  be 
in  any  church.  And  since  many  are  profoundly  pre- 
judiced against  the  church  of  Rome,  I  am  happy  to 
point  all  such  to  a  sure  welcome  in  the  Episcopal 
Church,  with  sacraments,  successions,  and  authority 
as  good  as  the  best. 

4.  The  Episcopal  Church  is  excellent  in  her  pro- 
visions for  christian  education  and  pious  drill. 

Churches  that  avowedly  receive  infants  as  members 
must  necessarily  provide  education  for  them.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Episcopal  Church  is  characteristically  a 
church  for  the  training  of  children,  just  as  some  sister 
churches  are  characteristically  revival  chu7'ches  for  the 
conversion  of  grown  folk. 

In  the  prayer-book  and  the  Church  almanac  you 


52  PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

find  the  christian  year  divided  into  periods  separated 
by  high  days,  —  monuments  and  memorials  of  christian 
story.  This  christian  calendar  agrees  very  nearly  with 
that  of  the  Roman  church.  He  is  an  unusually  well- 
informed  christian  who  can  read  over  this  catalogue 
of  days,  and  in  few  words  tell  the  story  that  each 
day  celebrates.  But  a  birthright  Churchman  who 
has  been  quietly  trained  in  his  Church  home  for 
fifteen  years  will  need  very  little  teaching  more. 

In  connection  with  this  calendar  is  a  system  of  les- 
sons, in  following  which  the  reader  is  led  through  the 
entire  Bible  each  year,  and  through  its  more  profitable 
parts  monthly  or  oftener. 

He  who  for  years  has  been  a  Churchman,  and  yet 
remains  ill-grounded  in  Scripture,  shows  himself  an 
unworthy  son  of  a  very  faithful  mother. 

By  the  lessons,  gospels,  epistles,  psalms,  and  collects 
appointed  for  special  fast  or  feast  days,  the  events 
commemorated  by  the  day  are  wrought  into  the 
memory  of  every  worshiper ;  and  by  seasons  longer 
or  shorter  of  special  religious  effort  and  observance, 
this  Church  satisfies  the  same  want  which  other 
churches  satisfy  by  weeks  of  prayer,  protracted  meet- 
ings, and  revivals. 

A  good  school  is  a  dull  place  to  any  visitor  who 
rushes  in  to  find  sensation  and  excitement.     He  will 


USES    CREEDS    PROPERLY.  53 

call  it  dry,  poky,  stupid.  In  like  manner,  many  re- 
ligious sensation  makers  and  sensation  seekers  will 
promptly  vote  the  Church  calendar  and  all  her  smooth 
machinery  of  pious  drill  a  very  dull  substitute  for  a 
regular,  rousing  revival.  But,  in  the  long  run,  the 
church  that  steadily  trains  and  teaches  will  outlive 
the  church  that  only  arouses  and  startles.  If  ye  coii- 
ti7iue  in  my  word,  then  are  ye  my  disciples  indeed. 

5.  This  Church  makes  a  distinct io?i  between  her 
creed  as  a  church,  to  which  all  her  officers  must  sub- 
scribe, and  that  much  shorter  declaration  of  faith  which 
she  expects  from  her  children. 

This  Church  never  vexes  converts  with  profound 
questions  in  theology.  Of  those  who  would  receive 
the  Lord's  supper  she  requires  "that  they  repent 
"them  truly  of  their  former  sins,  steadfastly  purpos- 
"  ing  to  lead  a  new  life  \  that  they  have  a  lively  faith 
"in  God's  mercy  through  Christ,  and  a  thankful  re- 
"  membrance  of  his  death,  and  that  they  be  in  charity 
"with  all  men." 

To  any  and  to  all  such,  asking  no  further  ques- 
tions, this  catholic  and  most  generous  Church  ap- 
proaches, and  by  the  hand  of  her  priest  gives  the 
consecrated  bread  with  benediction: — '■^ The  body  of 
^^  our  Lord  y^esus  Christ,  which  was  given  for  thee,  pre- 
''^  serve  thy  body  and  soul  tmto  everlasting  life.      Take 


54  PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

"  and  cat  iJiis  in  remembrance  that  Christ  died  for  thee; 
'•^fced  on  him  in  thy  heart  by  faith,  with  thanksgivingr 
And  with  like  words  the  consecrated  wine  :  ^^  Drink 
"this  in  remembrance  that  Chrisfs  blood  was  shed  for 
"  thee^  —  and  be  tha?ikfulP 

Citizens  and  christians  all !  —  Because  this  Episco- 
pal Church  is  a  reformed  church,  and  not  revolution- 
ary;—  because  her  book  of  prayer  is  rich  and  venera- 
ble above  all  in  the  English  tongue  j  —  because  her 
ritual  promotes  decency,  dignity,  propriety,  and  per- 
manence ;  —  because  her  historic  union  through  the 
apostles  with  Christ  comforts  and  satisfies  so  many 
souls  ;  —  because  she  adopts  her  infant  children  and 
provides  for  them  education  and  drill ;  —  and  because 
with  large  hospitality  she  proffers  her  sacrament  to 
all  true  believers  of  every  name  :  —  Therefore  from  her 
own  psalter  let  us  take  the  words  wherewith  to  bless 
her. 

"  They  shall  prosper  that  love  thee.  Peace  be 
"within  thy  walls,  and  plenteousness  within  thy  pal- 
"aces.  For  thy  brethren  and  companions'  sakes  I 
"  will  wish  thee  prosperity.  Yea,  because  of  the  house 
"  of  the  Lord  our  God  I  will  seek  to  do  thee  good." 


A   CATHOLIC   PRAYER.  55 


Prayer. 

"  O  God,  the  creator  and  preserver  of  all  mankind,  we 
"  humdly  beseech  thee  for  all  sorts  and  coiiditions  of  men  ; 
"  that  thou  woicldst  be  pleased  to  make  thy  ivays  known 
"  unto  them,  thy  saving  health  nnto  all  nations.  More 
^^  especially  we  pray  for  thy  Holy  Church  universal ;  that 
"  //  may  be  so  guided  and  governed  by  thy  good  Spirit,  that 
"  all  tvho  pi'ofcss  and  call  themselves  christians  may  be 
"  led  into  the  way  of  truth,  and  hold  the  faith  in  unity  of 
^^  spirit,  in  the  bond  of  peace,  and  in  righteousness  of  lifer 
Amen. 


IV. 

METHODIST  EPISCOPAL 


LECTURE  IV. 

METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 
Look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every 

MAN  also  on  the  THINGS  OF  OTHERS.  —  Phil.  ii.  4. 

SELF-LOVE  and  self-service  are  natural.  Self- 
protection  is  nature's  first  law.  A  generous  ap- 
preciation of  other  people  and  of  strangers  is  not 
natural.  It  is  an  acquired  grace.  As  with  the  indi- 
vidual so  with  churches.  To  know  and  love  and  be 
at  rest  in  one's  own  church  is  natural.  With  generous 
comprehension  to  know  and  admire  all  sister  churches 
is  an  acquired  grace. 

It  seems  a  pity  that  good  men  must  needs  die  and 
go  to  heaven  in  order  to  find  each  other  out !  It  is  a 
pity  that  churches  and  the  clergy  can  promptly  tell  the 
errors  that  deface  sister  churches,  but  with  less  of 
eloquence  declare  the  graces  that  beautify  them. 

Which  shall  we  look  at,  the  rose-buds  or  the  rose- 
bugs,  when  we  visit  a  neighbor's  conservatory  ?  Leave 
the  bugs  to  the  gardener,  and  let  us  enjoy  the  buds 
and  blossoms.     I  speak  to  you,  at  this  time,  of  the 


6o  METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 

roses  that  bud  and  blossom  in  the  Methodist  gar- 
den. 

The  denomination  which  we  call  Methodist  Epis- 
copal is  known  in  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies  as 
Wesleyan  Methodist.  The  beginnings  of  this  great 
Church  were  simultaneous  in  England  and  America. 
Revivals,  of  unprecedented  and  amazing  power,  fol- 
lowed the  preaching  and  praying  of  Wesley  and  White- 
field,  and  of  other  men  who  were  moved  to  the  work 
by  their  example.  In  this  country  the  fruit  of  these 
revivals  was  readily  harvested  by  churches  already 
existing,  and  no  distinctively  Methodist  organization 
seemed  called  for.  The  Methodist  revivals  began  in 
both  lands.  The  Methodist  organization  and  system 
began  in  Great  Britain.  Thither,  then,  let  us  look  and 
gather  up  a  little  history  of  them. 

In  1729  there  were  four  young  men  at  Oxford  uni- 
versity, England,  who  became  intensely  anxious  to  do 
the  right  thing  and  please  God.  They  studied,  they 
prayed,  they  fasted,  they  examined  themselves.  They 
went  gospeling  to  the  prisons  among  felons  and  thieves, 
and  teaching  among  the  children  of  the  poor.  The 
more  famous  members  of  this  "  Holy  club  "  were  John 
and  Charles  Wesley,  and  George  Whitefield.  But  per- 
haps the  most  useful  member  of  all  was  one  Morgan, 
by  whose  sweet  temper  and  good  sense  the  company 


REVIVALS    IN   ENGLAND.  6 1 

were  exercised  in  works  of  charity,  instead  of  growing 
fat  and  foolish  with  pious  dreams,  or  crazy  with  ascetic 
ecstasies.  So  Jesus  in  his  day  set  his  holy  apostolic 
club  at  work  as  well  as  at  prayer. 

A  small  lamp  shines  far  in  the  dark,  and  all  England 
was  dark  enough  when  Whitefield  began  to  preach. 

Sometimes  because  the  rectors  of  parishes  would 
not  open  the  church  doors,  but  oftener  because  the 
meeting-houses  were  too  small  for  the  crowds,  White- 
field  preached  in  the  open  air.  Reluctantly  John  Wes- 
ley found  himself  drawn  into  the  same  novel,  if  not 
disorderly,  practice. 

Astounding  conversions  multiplied;  and,  as  in  the 
days  of  Jesus  and  the  apostles,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
lowest  and  worst  people  were  the  ones  most  moved  by 
this  new  and  great  power  of  God. 

The  orderly,  and,  at  that  time,  sleepy  church  of  Eng- 
land, could  not  understand  this  new  blaze  of  enthu- 
siasm. Pentecostal  revivals  scared  them  as  much  as 
they  would  us.  And  although  Wesley  and  his  preach- 
ers reverenced  the  church  and  counseled  all  converts 
to  go  to  the  church  for  confirmation  and  the  sacra- 
ments, yet  the  converts  would  not  go ;  or,  going,  were 
not  at  home  or  comforted.  Separate  organization 
was  forced  upon  these  earnest  men. 

In  London,  for  instance,  eight  or  ten  persons  came 


62  METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 

to  John  Wesley  and  desired  tliat  he  would  spend  some 
time  among  them,  and  "  advise  them  how  to  flee  from 
the  wrath  to  come."  Here  began  a  "United  soci- 
ety," for  no  one  dreamed  of  a  new  or  dissenting 
church.  They  met  in  "  the  Foundry/'  an  old,  deserted 
government  building. 

This  was  the  first  purely  Methodist  organization, 
free  from  all  Moravian  and  from  all  Calvinistic  admix- 
ture. In  1839,  therefore,  the  Methodists  throughout 
the  world  joined  to  celebrate  their  centenar}^,  unani- 
mously agreeing  to  reckon  from  the  year  1739,  when 
these  "  United  brethren "  did  unwittingly  found  a 
church,  although  they  only  meant  to  have  good  meetings 
and  help  one  another  to  escape  from  the  wrath  to  come. 

Similar  societies  sprung  up  all  over  Great  Britain, 
and  naturally  looked  for  guidance  to  the  preachers 
by  w^hose  words  they  had  been  quickened ;  these 
preachers  in  turn  looked  to  Wesley  and  to  the  London 
society ;  and  so,  as  they  came  together  once  a  year  or 
oftener  to  confer  and  compare  experiences  and  results, 
their  meetings  became  conferences  ;  and  the  minutes 
of  these  meetings  were  and  are  the  constitution  of 
Methodism.  The  discipline  in  use  to-day  is  but  a 
digest  of  the  results  and  conclusions  of  these  earnest 
conferences,  presided  over  by  John  Wesley.  The  first 
of  these  conferences  was  held  in  London  in  1744. 


CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP.  63 

But  before  this  the  need  of  the  "  societies "  had 
been  so  great  that  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  without 
other  help  from  man,  prepared  "  General  rules  of  the 
United  societies."  These  rules  seem  to  me  a  better 
basis  for  church  organization  than  those  creeds  to 
which  our  ears  have  become  wonted.  Note  an  extract 
or  two.  They  define  a  "  United  society,"  or,  as  we 
call  it,  a  Methodist  Church,  as :  — 

"  A  company  of  men  having  the  form  and  seeking 
"  the  power  of  Godliness  ;  united  in  order  to  pray  to- 
"  gether,  and  to  watch  over  one  another  in  love,  that 
"  they  may  help  each  other  to  work  out  their  salvation." 

But  one  condition  of  membership  was  stipulated  :, — 
"A  desire  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  and  be 
"  saved  from  their  sins." 

"  This  desire  must  be  shown  by  doing  no  harm,  and 
"  by  doing  good.  Avoid  profane  swearing,  Sabbath- 
*'  breaking,  drunkenness,  buying  or  selling  liquors  or 
"  drinking  them,  except  in  cases  of  extreme  necessity. 
"  Avoid  fighting,  quarreling,  brawling,  going  to  law,  re- 
"  turning  evil  for  evil  or  railing  for  railing.  Avoid  using 
"  many  words  in  buying  or  selling,  speaking  evil  of 
"  magistrates  or  ministers.  Avoid  gold  ornaments  and 
"  costly  apparel.  Avoid  borrowing  without  a  probabil- 
"  ity  of  paying,  or  running  up  shop  accounts  when  one 
"  cannot  pay." 


64  METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 

The  good  to  be  done  is  of  kinds  as  follow  :  — 
*'  Doing  good  of  every  possible  sort,  and,  as  far  as 
"  possible,  to  all  men  ;  to  their  bodies,  by  giving  food 
"  to  the  hungry,  by  clothing  the  naked,  by  visiting  and 
"  helping  the  sick  and  the  prisoners ;  to  their  souls,  by 
"  instructing,  reproving,  exhorting  all  they  have  any  in- 
"  tercourse  with.  By  attending  on  all  the  ordinances 
"  of  God,  such  as  public  worship,  ministry  of  the  AVord, 
''  the  Lord's  supper,  family  and  private  prayer,  search- 
"  ing  the  Scriptures,  and  fasting."  These  are  some 
of  the  common  sense  and  pious  requirements  of  the 
Methodists.     Gainsay  them  who  can  ! 

The  heroic  endurance  and  achievements  of  these 
christian  preachers  and  people  are  almost  incredi- 
ble. Abate  three  or  four  miracles  —  as  the  lame 
man  healed  by  Peter  and  John,  the  death  of  Ana- 
nias and  Sapphira,  the  deliverances  from  prison  of 
Peter,  Paul  and  Silas  —  abate  these,  and  St.  Luke 
records  in  all  the  Acts  no  daring  more  heroic,  no  de- 
votion more  absolute,  and  no  victories  more  bril- 
liant, than  may  be  read  in  the  annals  of  these  early 
Methodists.  Of  these  evangelic  preachers  we  may 
say,  as  was  said  long  ago  of  other  men  of  faith :  — 
They  "had  trial  of  cruel  mockings  and  scourgings 
"  [and  duckings]  ;  yea,  moreover,  of  bonds  [fines]  and 
"  imprisonments.     They  were  stoned,  they  were  .... 


NOT   SCHISMATIC.  6$ 

"  tempted,  ....  were  destitute,  afflicted,  tormented ; 
"  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy." 

All  this  within  the  last  hundred  years !  Men  are 
probably  now  living  who  have  seen  and  talked  with 
John  Wesley.  And,  which  is  very  noteworthy,  Wesley 
and  his  preachers  were  not  noisy  destructives  nor  rev- 
olutionists. To  the  day  of  his  dying,  John  Wesley 
was  set  against  any  splitting  off  from  the  church  of 
England.  He  himself  was  a  priest  of  that  church. 
He  reckoned  his  great  work  to  be  a  quickening,  a  re- 
vival, in  the  old  church.  Like  Jesus  he  aimed  not  to 
destroy  but  to  fill  full.  Whatever  appearance  of  schism 
marked  the  Methodist  movement  during  Wesley's 
lifetime  was  necessitated  by  the  intolerance  of  church- 
men and  by  the  outcry  of  his  multiplying  societies, 
famine-stricken  for  the  sacraments.  Fifty  years  after 
the  founding  of  his  London  society,  when  he  could 
reckon  preachers  by  hundreds  and  Methodists  by 
thousands  (293  and  71,000),  Wesley  still  counsels  ad- 
herence to  the  church  of  England.  "  I  declare  once 
"  more  that  I  live  and  die  a  member  of  the  church  of 
"  England,  and  that  none  who  regard  my  judgment  or 
"  advice  will  ever  separate  from  it." 

In  England  to-day  many  Methodist  societies  use  a 
liturgy  selected  from  the  prayer-book  and  arranged  by 
John  Wesley.     Many  Methodists,  having  pious  love 

E 


66  METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 

for  the  church  of  England,  send  their  children  to  the 
bishops  of  that  church  for  confirmation.  Intelligent 
Methodists  of  Great  Britain  even  now  prefer  to  call 
their  churches  "societies,"  and  their  meeting-houses 
"  chapels,"  and  their  bishops  "  superintendents." 

But  in  this  country  the  Methodists  stand  up  and 
thrive  with  something  more  of  stiffness,  strength,  and 
spread.     They  are  not  a  vine,  but  a  tree. 

The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  America, 
like  the  AVesleyan  societies  in  Great  Britain,  began 
with  little  meetings  of  right  earnest  men  and  women 
anxious  to  be  saved  from  the  wrath  to  come.  John 
Wesley,  and  yet  more  extensively  George  Whitefield, 
had  preached  in  nearly  all  of  what  we  now  call  the 
Atlantic  states  from  Georgia  to  Maine.  But  they 
gathered  no  churches. 

In  1766  some  Irish  emigrants  in  New  York  city 
were  stirred  up  to  repent  and  return  from  their  back- 
slidings  by  the  urgency  of  one  old  woman,  who  bade 
Mr.  Embury  "  preach  to  us  or  we  shall  all  go  to  hell 
together."  He  preached.  A  society  was  gathered, 
and  in  1768  Wesley  chapel  was  built  on  John  street. 
New  York,  and  Mr.  Embury  preached  in  it  in  October. 
Preachers  came  over  from  England  and  others  sprung 
up  at  home ;  and  though  the  heat  of  war  passion  drove 
most  of  the  English  preachers  back  again  during  the 


AMERICAN    BISHOPS.  6/ 

Revolution,  and  many  Methodists  suffered  in  person 
and  property,  yet  at  the  close  of  the  war  there  re- 
mained forty-three  preachers  and  nearly  fourteen 
thousand  members  in  this  land. 

To  aid  these  far  away  brethren  and  guard  them 
against  crude  and  scandalous  irregularities,  John  Wes- 
ley, priest,  appointed  Thomas  Coke,  also  a  priest,  to 
be  a  superintendent  or  bishop  of  the  Methodists  in 
America. 

He  in  turn  ordained  Francis  Asbury ;  and  the 
American  preachers,  in  general  conference  in  Balti- 
more, acknowledged  these  two  as  their  "bishops." 
Ever  since  then,  the  Methodist  bishops  in  this  land 
are  successors  of  Coke  and  Asbury  ;  they  in  their  time 
received .  ordination  from  one  John  Wesley,  who  was 
not  a  bishop  at  all  according  to  men,  but  was  never- 
theless called  of  God  to  govern  a  larger  diocese 
than  he  of  Canterbury  ever  knew  —  the  Methodist 
Church  at  large. 

Thus  much  I  offer  as  outline  history  from  1729, 
when  the  "  Holy  club  "  began  to  pray  at  Oxford,  down 
to  1839,  when  Methodists  filled  their  first  denomi- 
national century. 

And  now,  as  our  text  says,  let  us  "  look  upon  the 
things  "  of  these  Methodists  and  admire  them.  True, 
they  have  been  changing  many  things  during  the  last 


6S  METHODIST    EPISCOPAL. 

thirty  years.  The  features  which  I  am  about  to  de- 
scribe are  not  so  clearly  seen  to-day  as  formerly.  The 
Methodist  Church  is  in  transition.  I  cannot  cast 
her  horoscope.     But  looking  back,  I  note:  — 

I.  T/ie  Methodist  is  pre-eminently  the  revival 
chiu'ch.  Other  deno7ninations  that  have  had  success  i?i 
revivals  7'esemhle  the  Methodist  in  proportion  to  their 
success, 

Methodism  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  quickening  in 
the  church  of  England.  A  few  men  began  to  make  it 
their  chief  aim  in  life  to  please  God  and  attain  unto  an 
assured  sense  of  acceptance  with  him.  They  ceased 
from  ceremony  and  sacrament.  They  silenced  the 
public  voice  of  theology  and  metaphysics.  They  went 
out  and  told  men  :  —  You  are  wicked  men.  You  are 
going  to  hell.  You  deserve  to  go.  But  oh  !  how  God 
has  loved  you!  How  he  hates  to  dai7in  you  I  Repent ! 
Repent  and  believe  on  the  only  Saviour^  Jesus  the  Christ 
of  God  !  Fleefro77i  the  wrath  to  C07ne  !  Repe7it,  believe^ 
pray,  declare  your  faith  a7id  behave  yourselves  ! 

The  theology  of.  the  Methodist  is  thus  a  working 
theology.  There  is  something  that  man  can  do  and 
he  would  better  be  up  and  doing.  God  has  intrusted 
man  with  a  power  to  be  saved,  or  to  save  himself; 
never  mind  which  you  call  it,  so  long  as  you  are 
saved.  • 


TREATMENT    OF    BACKSLIDERS.  69 

A  truly  Methodist  Church  or  society  is  to-day 
what  it  was  at  the  first,  a  company  of  men  anxious  to 
flee  the  wrath  to  come  and  help  each  other  on  toward 
the  full  assurance  of  sin  pardoned  and  of  God  recon- 
ciled. Starting  with  this  single  aim,  all  else  that 
is  at  all  peculiar  in  Methodism  has  grown  up,  and 
justifies  itself,  not  by  appeals  to  Scripture  or  to  tra- 
dition or  to  venerable  usage ;  but  by  strong  hearty 
christian  common  sense  and  utility.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, we  have  :  — 

2.  The  Methodist  doctrine  and  usage  as  to  back- 
sliders. 

When  Paul  the  apostle  was  the  revivalist  there  were 
some  Galatians  who  ran  well  for  a  time  only.  Nor 
he  nor  any  other  man  can  tell  who  will  run  well  the 
christian  race,  except  by  starting  them,  cheering  them, 
and  watching  the  result.  Plant  one  hundred  trees  and 
ten  are  to  die.  "  Which  ten  ?  "  Plant  and  see.  If  ye 
continue  in  my  word  then  are  ye  my  disciples  indeed, 
said  Jesus.  The  only  practical  test  of  piety  is  con- 
tinuance. 

The  Methodist  doctrine  and  usage  is  that  they 
who  seem  to  be  converted  are  converted,  and  should 
be  at  once  encouraged  and  received  as  christians. 
Plant  them  in  the  church.  Give  to  them  the  com- 
fortable sacrament.     If  any  fall  back,  and  their  love 


70  METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 

grow  cold,  call  them  backsliders ;  and  as  soon  as  the 
fire  burns  brightly  again,  bring  them  back  to  it  prayer- 
fully and  hopefully  —  warm  them  up  and  try  them 
again. 

At  first  they  are  "  probationers  "  and  if  they  seem 
to  fail  they  are  not  in  peril  of  excommunication  and 
perdition.  They  are  as  the  shining  slops  and  drops 
that  fall  back  from  a  full  bucket  into  a  deep  well ;  — 
they  were  brought  up  from  darkness  to  light ;  they  fell 
back  ;  but  then  they  are  not  lost  for  good  and  all ; 
we  '11  be  drawing  water  again  some  day. 

3.  The  same  spirit  that  produced  Methodist  revivals 
and  Methodist  theology,  brought  Methodist  hy?7ins 
and  Methodist  singing  to  pass. 

If  men  talk  at  all  they  talk  their  mother  tongue. 
If  they  sing  at  all  they  sing  the  tunes  they  know. 
The  Methodists  did  not  require  the  people  to  learn 
a  sacred  Greek  or  Hebrew  language  to  talk  religion 
withal,  nor  sacred  tunes  in  which  to  sing  religion. 
They  took  the  people's  language  and  the  people's 
tunes  and  charged  them  with  the  gospel  story.  They 
talked  and  they  sang  the  words  and  the  melodies  of 
the  people. 

Charles  Wesley  wrote  hymns  to  match  John  Wes- 
ley's and  George  Whitefield's  preaching.  That  they 
were  christian  hymns  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  nearly 


HYMNS    AND    TUNES.  /I 

all  churches  and   sects  that  use  the  English  tongue 
to  this  day  print  and  use  them. 

Among  you,  to-day,  if  any  know  by  heart  six  chris- 
tian hymns,  be  sure  that  Charles  Wesley  wrote  at 
least  one  of  them.     Listen  to  :  — 

Lo  !  on  a  narrow  neck  of  land, 
'Twixt  two  unbounded  seas  I  stand  ; 

Yet  how  insensible. 
Or:  — 

Weary  of  wandering  from  my  God, 
And  now  made  ready  to  return. 


Or:  — 


Or:  — 


Or 


Or: 


Stay,  thou  insulted  Spirit,  stay  ! 
Though  I  have  done  thee  such  despite. 

O  that  my  load  of  sin  were  gone  ! 
O  that  I  could  at  last  submit ! 

O  for  a  thousand  tongues  to  sing 
My  great  Redeemer's  praise  ! 


Love  divine,  all  love  excelling, 
Joy  of  heaven  to  earth  come  down  ! 

Or:  — 

Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul, 
Let  me  to  thy  bosom  fly. 

Or:  — 

Let  saints  below  in  concert  sing 
With  those  to  glory  gone  ! 


72  METHODIST   EPISCOPAL. 

Let  me  quote  entire  stanzas  from  this   hymn.     Is 
there  finer  sentiment  in  our  language  ? 


One  family  we  dwell  in  him, 
One  church  above,  beneath ; 
Though  now  divided  by  the  stream, 
The  narrow  stream,  of  death ! 

One  army  of  the  living  God, 

To  his  command  we  bow  ;  — 

Part  of  the  host  have  crossed  the  flood, 

And  part  are  crossing  now. 

Is  not  this  equal  to  that  splendid  Scripture  :  See- 
ing, then,  that  we  are  compassed  about  with  so  great 
a  cloud  of  witnesses,  let  us  lay  aside  every  weight, 
and  the  sin  which  doth  so  easily  beset  us,  and  let  us 
run  our  race  with  patience  ! 

If  the  Methodist  Church  ever  give  up  her  people's 
melodies  and  take  instead  "  sacred  music "  ;  if  she 
ever  give  up  the  voice  of  many  singers  and  take  in- 
stead organs  and  quartet  choirs  ;  if  she  ever  forsake 
the  passion  of  christian  love  breathed  by  Wesley  and 
take  the  stately  psalm  instead  :  —  then  will  her  glory 
indeed  fade ;  for  the  half  of  her  revival  power  over 
rude  and  wicked  men  will  have  departed  from  her. 

Children  of  the  heavenly  King, 
As  ye  journey  sweetly  sing. 


CLASS-MEETINGS.    •  73 

4,  The  Methodist  class  and  class-meeting  ought  per- 
haps  to  have  had  the  very  first  place  i7i  this  statement  of 
useful  a7id peculiar  Methodist  devices. 

Originally  the  class-meeting  was  a  device  of  finan- 
cial order  and  convenience.  The  early  Methodists 
gave  money  for  orphan  asylums  and  missions  before 
they  began  to  build  chapels  for  themselves.  They 
were  poor.  Their  gifts  were  pennies.  Save  the  pen- 
nies. Let  these  christians  be  noted  by  name,  from 
twelve  to  twenty  in  a  book.  Let  an  honest  man  be 
their  leader  and  receive  their  cash.  Let  these  leaders 
meet  and  report  weekly  to  a  steward  or  a  preacher ; 
and  if  any  class-member  be  not  at  class-meeting,  let 
the  leader  look  for  him  and  get  his  penny  and  his 
excuse. 

Of  course  it  was  at  once  seen  that  song  and  prayer 
and  exhortation  were  in  place  at  these  class-meetings. 
Acquaintance  was  perfected.  Gifts  were  detected  and 
developed.  The  class  became  the  nursery  of  the 
Church. 

No  other  christian  church  that  I  know  of  has  any 
provision  for  "  watch  and  care "  of  its  members  that 
for  a  moment  can  compare  with  the  classes,  class- 
leaders,  class-meetings,  leaders'  meetings,  and  Thurs- 
day meetings  of  these  Methodists.  It  is  Pestalozzi's 
monitorial  school  system  transferred  to  the  Church. 
4 


74  METHODIST    EPISCOrAL. 

And  to  life's  end  every  church-member  holds  per- 
sonal and  responsible  acquaintance  with  his  brethren 
and  his  pastor  through  his  class.  The  enrolled  be- 
liever who  neglects  his  class,  or  fails  to  profit  by  it,  has 
lost  all  title  to  the  name  Methodist,  and  probably, 
alas  !  to  the  name  christian  also. 

5.  The  Methodists  show  wiusual  sagacity  and  busi- 
ness faculty  throughout  their  entire  economy. 

Their  name  is  peculiarly  felicitous,  —  Methodists, 
—  men  of  method,  plan-wise  people.  Any  business 
man  can  see  at  a  glance  that  the  Methodist  fathers 
were  no  fools  in  finance.  The  class-meeting  penny 
was  the  rain-drop  unit  which  by  multiplication  became 
a  flood.  In  these  latter  days  of  Methodist  million- 
aires and  princely  gifts  and  endowments,  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  the  consecrated  treasure  of  the  church  is 
as  large  in  proportion  or  as  constant  as  in  the  earlier 
days  of  pennies  and  punctuality. 

The  pay  of  preachers,  —  so  much  to  the  man,  so 
much  more  if  he  marry,  and  so  much  for  each  baby ; 
the  pensions  for  the  sick  and  the  superannuated  ;  the 
great  book-concerns  and  the  distribution  of  their  prof- 
its ;  the  church  newspapers  and  magazines  and  the 
appointed  editors  thereof;  the  endowment  of  acade- 
mies and  colleges;  in  short,  the  manufacturinir,  the 
commercial,  the  literary,  the  educational,  and  the  finan- 


BUSINESS    SAGACITY.  75 

cial  business  attended  to  by  a  Methodist  conference 
is  something  astounding  to  an  ordinary  ecclesiastic. 

Indeed,  John  Wesley  above  all  preachers  that  ever 
lived  was  versatile  and  courageous  in  his  christian 
enterprises.  He  founded,  probably,  the  first  dispen- 
sary ever  known  in  London,  and  was  for  a  time 
himself  the  physician  and  apothecary.  He  procured 
and  held  property  to  afford  a  home  to  widows  and 
aged  women.  He  provided  a  loan  society,  such  as 
should  be  in  every  church  to-day,  and  with  a  capital 
of  only  fifty  dollars  relieved  two  hundred  and  fifty  i)eo- 
ple  in  one  year  and  kept  the  capital  whole !  He  had 
a  head  for  accounts.  His  last  entry  tells  his  story  and 
preaches  a  sermon  to  all  christians.     Says  he  :  — 

*'  N.  I).  —  For  upwards  of  eighty-six  years  I  have 
"kept  my  accounts  exactly.  I  will  not  attempt  it  any 
"  longer,  being  satisfied  with  the  continual  conviction 
*'  that  I  save  all  I  can^  and  gh'c  all  I  can,  that  is,  all  I 
"  kavey  Let  us  follow  Wesley  in  this,  even  as  he  fol- 
lowed Christ. 


I  have  said  that  the  MF/nionisrs  of  this  country  arc 
in  transition.  The  fiune  of  their  great  achievement 
arrests  general  attention.  The  movement  is  so  great 
that  I  cannot  measure  it.     I  note  the  learning  of  the 


'J^  METHODIST    EPISCOPAL. 

preachers  and  professors  ;  I  see  the  meeting-houses 
costly  and  elaborately  appointed  ;  I  hear  of  endow- 
ments of  academies,  colleges,  seminaries,  and  univer- 
sities ;  I  feel  the  earth  tremble  as  the  chariots  and 
horsemen  of  this  great  christian  army  go  thundering 
by.  I  know  where  they  came  from,  and  the  camps 
they  have  left,  and  the  victories  they  have  won.  God 
prosper  and  give  them  good  speed !  But  be  their 
achievements  what  they  may,  they  cannot  more  bless 
mankind  nor  glorify  God  than  have  their  fathers,  who 
believed  in  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  convert 
and  sanctify ;  and,  going  forth  empty-handed,  have 
filled  the  English  language  with  music  and  with  gos- 
pel testimonies  j  and  have  added,  it  may  well  be,  mil- 
lions of  names  to  the  roll  of  the  redeemed. 


V. 

INDEPENDENT. 


BAPTIST  AND   CONGREGATIONAL. 


LECTURE     V. 

BAPTIST   AND   CONGREGATIONAL. 

"  For  where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my 

NAME,  THERE  AM  I  IN   THE  MIDST  OF  THExM."  —  Matt,  xviii.  20. 

A  CONGREGATION  that  finds  this  Scripture 
-^^^  true  is  contented  to  have  Jesus  for  company. 
Other  and  very  famous  churches  find  another  Scrip- 
ture  true  and  are  content  with  Peter  for  a  founda- 
tion. Contentment  is  a  great  good.  With  Godliness 
it  is  great  gain. 

A  CoNGREGATiONALiST  (for  short  Congregationist) 
is  one  who,  being  contented  with  my  text,  insists  that 
"two  or  three"  beUevers  thereto  consenting  are  a 
christian  church;  as  such  they  are  competent  to  all 
the  acts,  and  they  possess  all  the  franchises,  which  are 
mentioned  in  the  New  Testament  as  pertaining  to  any 
church  of  Christ  on  earth. 

In  Great  Britain,  the  Congregationists  are  still 
called  by  their  first  name,  —  Independents.  The 
larger  number  of  Congregationists  insist  upon  im- 
mersion as  baptism.     Such  are  called  Baptists.     I 


80  INDEPENDENT. 

devote  this  lecture  to  an  exhibition  of  the  uses  and 
excellences  of  Baptists  and  Congregationists,  or 
Independents,  —  a  short  name  when  I  would  speak 
of  both  together. 

Their  history  :  — 

When  war  is  raging  between  great  armies,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  trace  the  marchings  hither  and  thither  of 
the  larger  bodies.  But  if  the  war  continue  any  con- 
siderable time,  the  whole  region  called  "  the  seat  of 
war "  will  become  alive  with  scouts  and  squads  and 
single  soldiers,  patriot  rangers,  spies,  and  a  rout 
besides  of  adventurers,  Qamp-followers,  bummers  and 
thieves.  While  the  achievements  of  the  armies  are 
easily  noted,  the  deeds  and  misdeeds  of  this  great  un- 
organized multitude  can  never  be  correctly  told.  The 
noblest  heroism  and  the  vilest  scoundrelism  will  find 
illustration  among  these  rangers  and  guerillas. 

After  the  same  sort,  the  student  of  church  history 
finds  little  difficulty  in  tracing  the  great  churches  that 
have  perfected  themselves  and  their  machinery  of 
power,  as  the  Roman,  Greek,  Nestorian,  Anglican, 
Lutheran,  presbyterian,  and  methodist.  But  when  we 
ask  for  the  history  of  Baptists  or  Congregation- 
ists, —  Independents,  —  there  is  no  history  of  them 
as  a  denomination. 

Although  their  numbers  have  been  great,  their  spirit 


SEPARATIONS    INEVITABLE.  8l 

heroic,  and  their  success  unmistakable,  yet  they  have 
been  like  the  countless  fragments  that  come  rattling 
down  a  mountain  side  in  company  with  and  following 
after  great  avalanches.  The  momentum,  the  thunder, 
and  the  fame  are  with  the  avalanche ;  but  the  fertility 
afterward,  —  the  vineyards  and  the  gardens  are  found 
chiefly  with  the  fine  detritus,  the  rubbish  left  along  the 
road  where  power  and  greatness  went  thundering  by. 

There  never  has  been  a  day  since  Paul  rebuked 
Peter,  and  Barnabas  parted  from  Paul,  in  which  the 
loyalty  of  brave*  men  to  their  convictions  has  not 
compelled  them  into  dissent  and  so-called  schism. 
Around  these  conscientious,  clear-headed  men  gathers 
promptly  a  little  company,  unable  to  answer  their  argu- 
ments or  resist  their  personal  magnetism.  These  com- 
pact companies  glow  with  intense  heat,  their  enthusiasm 
amounts  to  frenzy.  If  scattered  by  persecution  they 
are  hke  a  rain  of  fire,  igniting  wherever  they  alight. 

Such  little  congregations  make  no  figure  in  history, 
yet  they  have  had  a  very  decisive  effect  upon  the  be- 
havior and  the  doctrine  of  the  great  churches.  Some- 
times these  congregations  have  been  devotees  of 
falsehood,  uncleanness,  and  folly.  At  other  times 
they  have  been  clean  and  bright  as  dew-drops  in  the 
wilderness,  shining  and  going  up. 

Congregational,  then,  means  nothing  in  history, 


82  INDEPENDENT. 

nothing  distinctive  as  good  or  bad.  Baptist  means 
nothing  in  .history  as  good  or  bad.  I  take  it  to  be 
quite  impossible  to  do  more,  in  a  survey  of  the  past, 
than  simply  to  note  that  separate  and  independent 
congregations  have  been  spattered  down  throughout 
Christendom,  and  wherever  they  struck  they  struck  in, 
and  witnessed  an  olfsh'na^e confession  always;  and  many 
times,  of  course,  a  heroic  and  a  christian  confession. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  by  all,  that  not  only  the 
so-called  Congregationists  and  Baptists  of  this 
country  are  really  congregational,  but  the  spiritual- 
ists, unitarians,  Swedenborgians,  and  quakers  are  also 
Congregationists.  That  is  to  say,  whenever  any 
such  people  come  together  they  are  a  congregation, 
and  claim  to  be  nothing  more. 

A  man  of  learning  can  easily  prepare  a  history  of 
Independency  in  France  ;  another  history  of  Inde- 
pendency in  Germany,  showing  how  the  reformers 
needed  reforming,  and  how  Luther  abhorred  the  re- 
baptizers  or  anabaptists  ;  another  history  of  Indepen- 
dency in  England,  noting,  among  other  things,  how 
Henry  VI 1 1,  read  his  Bible  and  protested  against  Rome, 
and  sturdy  Baptists  read  the  same  Bible  and  protested 
against  Henry.  Rome  cursed  Henry,  and  Henry 
cursed  the  Baptists. 

Hundreds,  aye  thousands,  of  Independents  have 


COURTESY   AND    CORRESPONDENCE.  8^ 

uttered  eloquent  testimony  in  every  nation  of  Europe ; 
but  these  separate  churches  had  not,  and  have  not,  any 
organic  union.  In  after  years,  when  by  suffering  they 
have  paid  the  price  of  universal  toleration,  then  these 
separate  churches  will  salute  each  other,  and  note  their 
free  agreements,  and  put  forth  tendrils  ready  for  grace- 
ful intertwinings.  And  as  they  draw  together  they 
become  more  and  more  like  a  denomination  of  the 
presbyterian  type. 

In  this  land  Congregation ists  and  Baptists  be- 
gan together,  having  been  known  in  England  as  Inde- 
pendents, and  having  suffered  together.  Yet  there 
was  not  among  these  pilgrims  a  perfect  agreement  as 
to  the  sacraments  of  the  church,  or  the  extent  to 
which  civil  authority  ought  to  be  used  to  bring  con- 
formity to  pass.  The  issue  was  soon  forced  in  Massa- 
chusetts ;  and,  as  all  remember,  Roger  Williams,  be- 
ing convinced  that  he  was  himself  still  unbaptized, 
and  being  unable  to  submit  his  conscience  to  the 
standing  Congregational  rule,  became  an  exile, 
and,  putting  his  trust  in  God,  founded  the  colony 
Rhode  Island  and  the  city  Providence  upon  a  "demo- 
cratical  "  constitution,  ending  with  these  memorable 
words,  —  "  And  let  the  saints  of  the  Most  High  walk 
"  in  this  colony  without  molestation,  in  the  name  of 
"  Jehovah  their  God,  for  ever  and  ever." 


84  INDEPENDENT. 

This  broad  doctrine  of  religious  toleration  —  free- 
dom of  conscience  and  religious  observance  —  was  pro- 
claimed in  Maryland  also,  a  Roman  catholic  colony ; 
and  since  those  early  days  has  become  the  common 
law  of  christian  churches  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world. 

In  this  land  Baptists  differ  from  Congregation- 
ISTS,  so  called,  in  their  definition  of  baptism  and  the 
logical  inferences  from  that  definition. 

It  is  often  said  that  Baptists  differ  from  other 
christians  only  as  to  the  mode  of  baptism,  —  a  mere 
trifle.  This  is  a  mistake.  To  a  Baptist  there  is  no 
7node  of  baptism.  To  cut  off  a  man's  head  is  one 
mode  or  sort  of  amputation,  but  to  cut  off  his  finger  is 
not  one  mode  of  decapitation.  So  christian  baptism 
is  one  sort  or  mode  of  washing;  but  all  well-meant 
washings  are  not  modes  of  baptism  !  Because,  say 
the  Baptists,  christian  baptism  is  {a)  the  immersion 
in  water  {h)  of  a  christian  believer  {c)  in  the  name  of 
God,  —  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  To  this  sacrament 
thus  defined  there  are  and  can  be  no  two  modes. 

In  eveiy  regard  except  this  one  sacrament  and  its 
consequences  the  Congregationists  and  Baptists 
are  in  perfect  accord.  Both  Baptists  and  Congrega- 
tionists in  thickly  settled  regions  are  coming  to- 
gether in  associations,  consociations,  councils  and  con- 


BAPTISTS   VERY   NUMEROUS.  85 

ferences,  and  are  behaving  in  all  but  the  name  and 
theory  like  presbyterians.  Here  and  there  all  over 
the  land  are  to  be  found  singl'e  churches  standing  for 
Independency;  but  the  tendency  with  each  year  is 
to  revert  to  the  presbyterian  type,  —  the  tendency  to 
which  I  alluded  in  my  lecture  of  that  denomination.^ 

Until  twenty  years  ago  the  school  geographies  used 
to  record  Baptists  as  the  most  populous  denomina- 
tion in  this  country.  Their  strength  was  chiefly  at 
the  West  and  South.  (It  should  be  remembered  that 
christian  baptism  originated  in  a  warm  climate.)  Con- 
GREGATiONiSTS,  on  the  Contrary,  are  a  quite  small  de- 
nomination. And  it  is  worthy  of  mention  that  both 
methodists  and  Congregationists,  especially  at  the 
South,  are  perceiving  the  expediency  of  administering 
immersion. 

Thus  much  being  premised  by  way  of  history  of  a 
denomination  that  has  no  history,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not 
a  denomination  but  a  galaxy  of  stars  each  twinkling 
by  itself  in  the  dark,  I  go  on  to  note  some  of  the  uses 
and  excellences  of  these  numerous  Churches,  which 
are  quite  independent  of  each  other  and  yet  happen 
to  agree. 

I.    The  Congregation  is  the  t?'ue  mother  chtirch. 

The  Congregation  is  the  raw  material  out  of 
*  See  pages  29,  30. 


86  INDEPENDENT. 

which  all  social  fabrics  are  cut;  —  the  great  marble 
quarry  without  which  not  one  ecclesiastical  temple 
could  ever  have  been  built  or  ornamented.  All 
churches  are  of  necessity  Congregational  first, 
and  afterward  whatever  they  may  choose  to  be. 
In  a  certain  proper  sense  I  may  say,  too,  that  all 
churches  are  even  now  Congregational  churches, 
for  they  are  certainly  congregatiofis ;  and  if  I  visit  any 
congregation  and  ask  among  them,  Why  do  you  accept 
this  prayer-book  ?  they  can  give  but  one  answer^  — Be- 
cause we  prefer  it.  The  preference  of  the  congrega- 
tion settles  the  constitution  of  that  church.  Five 
thousand  people  gather  in  St.  Patrick's  cathedral,  or 
hang  round  its  windows  like  bees  about  their  hives 
in  July,  a  mighty  congregation.-  I  question  them,  one 
by  one,  Why  co77ie  you  here  ?  With  one  consent  they 
answer.  Because  we  choose  to.  Let  the  five  thousand 
change  their  mind  and  their  services  shall  be  no  more 
Roman  catholic.  Thus  I  say  that  the  Congregation- 
al is  the  mother  church.  Older  than  the  Roman,  old 
as  that  first  prayer-meeting  when  the  apostles  with  the 
women  met  and  prayed,  and  voted,  and  cast  lots,  and, 
best  of  all,  received  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  • 

2.  The  christian  world  owes  its  theory  and  practice  of 
comprehensive  toleration  to  Baptists  and  Congrega- 
tionists,  —  Independents. 


TOLERATION    QUESTIONABLE.  8/ 

There  are  two  sides  to  this  question  of  general  tol- 
eration or  freedom  of  conscience.  The  old  Jewish 
church  ought  to  have  tolerated  Jesus,  whom  they  mar- 
tyred "ignorantly."  "  They  know  not  what  they  do," 
Jesus  himself  testified.  And  thus  we  see  that  church- 
es, however  venerable  and  divine,  are  liable  to  stone 
the  messengers  and  slay  the  Son  of  the  great  King, 
and  therefore  old  churches  ought  to  be  tolerant  at 
times. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  acts  and  evils  which 
no  church  or  society  should  tolerate  for  a  day.  The 
Hindoo  thug  is  a  murderer  j  and  even  though  he  may 
reckon  murder  a  religious  act,  he  is  not  to  be  tolerated. 
He  who  kills  the  body  does  far  less  damage  than  he 
who  ruins  the  soul  of  man  !  If  we  lay  the  strong  hand 
on  thugs,  ought  we  not  to  suppress  infidels  who  are 
casting  souls  into  hell  ? 

Earnest  men  like  Saul  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  sin- 
cerity and  toleration.  They  breathe  forth  threatening 
and  slaughter.  They  hate  the  enemies  of  God  with  a 
perfect  hatred.  Better  that  men  die  by  thousands 
than  be  damned  by  millions  ! 

Toleration  becomes  a  reasonable  doctrine  only  in 
the  light  of  experience.  After  centuries  of  agony  in- 
flicted now  by  one  and  now  by  another  sincere  perse- 
cutor, it  has  dawned  upon  men  that  religious  compul- 


88  INDEPENDENT. 

sions,  however  desirable,  are  impossible.  They  defeat 
themselves  and  are  therefore  absurd. 

This  doctrine  of  non-compulsion  the  Independents 
have  held  from  a  very  early  age.  In  the  fourth  cen- 
tury we  find  zealous  and  persecuted  Donatists  in 
Africa  talking  the  most  advanced  nineteenth-century 
doctrine  as  to  civil  and  religious  freedom  :  "  What 
has  the  emperor  to  do  with  the  church  ? "  asked  bishop 
Donatus,  the  purist  and  protestant,  fifteen  hundred 
years  ago. 

Many  of  these  Independents  were,  of  course.  Bap- 
tists. Persecuted  christians  necessarily  become  liter- 
alists,  /.  e.  accurate  in  conforming  to  the  letter  of  their 
rules,  —  close  copyists  of  Jesus  Christ.  Such  persons 
will  find  comfort  in  multiplying  points  of  literal  agree- 
ment between  their  actions  and  the  actions  of  Jesus 
Christ.  This  tendency  may  become  excessive,  puerile. 
Men  have  pleaded  for  beards,  and  rejected  buttons, 
and  curled  their  hair,  and  given  up  houses,  refused 
marriage,  and  run  round  naked  that  they  might  be 
as  little  children,  and  other  like  follies,  in  their 
desir6  to  be  literal  followers  and  imitators  of  Jesus 
Christ.  This  tendency  to  literalism  leads  to  the  im- 
mersion of  believers  as  the  only  Scriptural  baptism. 

Here  then  I  note  :  — 

3.   The  christian  church  has  heeji  incessantly  pruned 


CORRUPTIONS    INEVITABLE.  89 

and  brought  back  to  primitive  simplicity  and  truth  by  the 
sharp  surgery  of  these  Independents  again. 

The  foundation  of  christian  faith  is  Jesus  Christ, 
Paul  says.  An  imitation  of  Jesus  is  the  guide  for 
christian  endeavor.  But  love  is  always  garlanding 
the  beloved.  Love  is  a  creator.  Love  is  all  the 
time  beautifying.  The  literal  imitator  of  Jesus,  if 
not  hardened  by  opposition,  will  in  a  very  few  gen- 
erations outgrow  his  literalism.  The  sharp  and  se- 
vere outlines  of  truth  and  duty  will  be  lost  sight  of 
under  ornaments  and  beautifyings,  —  additions  all. 

This  luxuriance,  like  tropical  vegetation,  by  and  by 
becomes  a  tangle,  a  mat,  a  rot,  a  stink.  That  which 
in  the  beginning  was  an  act  of  grace  and  love  be- 
comes a  heavy  burden  and  a  superstition.  The  free 
gifts  of  gratitude  by  translation  become  the  extor- 
tions of  an  avaricious  church.  Sacraments  express- 
ing christian  love  and  hope  become  acts  mystic 
and  magical.  Priests  inveigle  victims  by  performing 
priestly  acts,  or  terrify  the  dying  by  withholding  them, 
—  as  if  God  would  ever  allow  any  man  to  send  his 
brother  man  to  heaven  or  hell ! 

The  axe,  the  bill-hook,  and  fire  can  alone  clear  off 
such  snaky  swamps  and  let  up  a  new  growth.  The 
remedy  for  the  corruption  of  an  old  church  is  to  go 
back  to  first  principles  and  develop  a  new  church. 


90  INDEPENDENT. 

Potatoes  are  propagated  by  roots,  —  each  year's 
growth  is  but  a  continuation  of  last  year's.  So,  too, 
strawberries  are  propagated  by  offsets  from  the  old 
vines.  Grapevines  are  propagated  by  cuttings,  — 
little  pieces  of  the  old  vines  set  a  growing ;  and  fruit- 
trees  by  grafted  scions,  —  old-fashioned,  but  set  on 
new  stocks. 

But  it  sometimes  happens  that  blight  or  rot  or  mil- 
dew, or  some  disease,  affects  certain  stocks.  At  once 
the  cultivator  secures  health  by  going  back  of  roots, 
offsets,  cuttings  and  scions,  —  back  to  the  seed,  and 
propagating  new  generations.  Thus  have  come  to 
pass  our  choicest  and  healthiest  varieties,  —  seed- 
lings. 

In  like  manner  we  find  that  in  all  ages  w4ien  blight, 
corruption,  mildew,  and  death  have  affected  this  or 
that  great  church,  earnest  men  of  prayer  have  natu- 
rally gone  back  and  propagated  from  the  seed  ;  and 
thus  have  come  to  pass  new  varieties  of  the  old 
things,  new  samples  of  the  w^ork  of  the  Spirit,  re- 
newing the  hearts  and  rearranging  the  societies  of 
men.  Baptists  and  Congregationists,  —  Indepen- 
dents are  these  seedling  churches,  primitive  and 
pure. 

4.  Congregation  came  very  neai"  to  being  the  most 
obvious  church  name  in  the  New  Testament. 


CHURCH  =  CONGREGATION.  QI 

Ah  me  !  and  alas  !  on  what  a  slender  thread  hang 
everlasting  things !  We  Congregationists  came 
within  a  hair  of  having  the  English  Bible  all  on  our 
side,  —  our  Church  the  only  true  church.  Just  think 
of  it !  All  others  dissenters  !  But  no.  King  James, 
notwithstanding  his  puritan  training  and  his  presby- 
terian  professions  in  open  kirk,  in  addition  to  his 
religion  professed  kingcraft  also  when  he  came  to  the 
throne  of  England,  and  sided  with  "  The  Church  "  be- 
cause "The  Church  "  was  essential  to  the  throne.  And 
so  when  the  Bible  was  to  be  revised  or  re-translated, 
he  gave  the  revisers  certain  rules,  among  them  this  :  — 

Rule  -^d.  Old  ecclesiastical  words  to  be  kept ; 
namely^  as  the  ivord  "  clmrch "  not  to  he  translated 
"  congregation!'' 

Think  what  a  different  book  the  New  Testament 
would  be  if,  wherever  the  word  "  church  "  now  ap- 
pears, the  King  had  only  let  the  translators  write 
simply  "  gathering  "  or  "  congregation  !  "  Think  how 
respectable  that  would  have  made  us  at  once,  to  have 
our  church  order  the  only  Scriptural  one  ! 

But  soberly,  both  Scripture  and  common  sense  de- 
monstrate, as  we  have  seen,  that  all  churches  must  be 
first  Congregational  and  afterward  whatever  they 
may  chance  or  choose.  The  substance  of  which  all 
churches  do  consist  is  the  congregation.     The  congre- 


92  INDEPENDENT. 

gation  gives  them  character.  I  cannot  conceive  of  a 
magnificent  regiment  in  which  the  officers  and  men 
are  all  drunk  ;  nor  of  a  contemptible  regiment  in 
which  the  officers  and  men  are  all  soldiers  and  pa- 
triots. It  is  the  congregation  that  gives  character  to 
the  church,  not  the  church  to  the  congregation.  Per- 
ceiving this : — 

5.  The  Congregational  Church  can  he  peculiarly 
catholic  and  charitable  toward  other  churches. 

Sectarianism,  always  a  blemish,  is  inexcusable  in  a 
CoNGREGATiONiST,  bccausc  his  fundamental  principle 
is,  Let  every  congregation  act  its  own  pleasure,  ac- 
countable to  God  only. 

If,  then,  any  congregation  choose  to  become  pres- 
byterian,  the  Congregationist  replies  :  —  Certai?ily  I 
Do  as  you  please.  Another  congregation  prefers  meth- 
odism  :  —  Certainly.  We  do  as  we  like.  Let  every 
co7igregation  be  clearly  persuaded  in  its  own  mind.  No 
Congregationist  has  any  business  to  find  fault 
with  the  action  of  any  other  church.  What  he 
claims  for  himself  he  must  allow  to  others,  whether 
they  allow  it  to  him  or  not.  Being  himself  utterly 
free,  he  should  allow  to  all  what  he  claims  for  himself. 

6.  A  Congregational  Church  can  act  promptly 
and  heartily^  not  being  entangled  with  side  i?iterests. 

Great  denominations  are  unwieldy.     They  cannot 


CAN   ACT   PROMPTLY.  93 

Stop,  start,  turn  out,  or  change.  Indeed,  they  brag  of 
this  their  bigness.  When  a  man  falls  overboard,  a 
row-boat  can  reach  him  quicker  than  a  ship.  If  an 
emergency  arises,  a  Congregational  Church  can 
meet  it  quicker  than  a  great  denomination  can.  For 
great,  costly,  and  lasting  works,  the  great  denomina- 
tions are  responsible  workers.  For  new,  sudden, 
transient  duty,  the  Congregational  churches  ought 
to  be  promptly  interested.  The  elephant  can  push 
off  a  ship  into  the  water,  but  cannot  catch  a  mouse ;  a 
kitten  can  catch  a  mouse,  but  can  launch  no  ship  larger 
than  an  eggshell. 

All  doubtful  ventures  and  experiments  should  be 
tried  by  Congregationists  first,  as  little  boats  go 
ahead  of  great  ships  to  make  soundings  and  buoy  out 
the  channel.  If  the  little  boat  gets  sunk  on  this  per- 
ilous errand,  the  big  ship  can  pick  up  the  swimmers. 
In  this  same  line  :  — 

7.  Congregationism  offers  few  temptations  to  eccle- 
siasts  and  church  lawyers. 

An  ecclesiast  is  a  man  who  works  in  and  by  church 
machinery.  He  is  an  official.  A  christian  is  a  man 
who  lives  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
does  good  as  he  has  opportunity,  in  or  out  of  office. 
The  larger  the  mill,  the  more  wheels  and  machinists 
are  needed.     The  larger  the  church,  the  more  eccle- 


94  INDEPENDENT. 

siasts  are  needed.  Church  usages,  canonical  law, 
venerable  tradition,  will  become  a  lifelong  study.  A 
man  skilled  in  these  things  will  administer  the  affairs 
of  a  denomination.  A  derangement  in  one  part  of 
the  great  organism  may  easily  jar  and  set  a  grinding 
every  other  part. 

But  pure  Congregationism  has  no  machinery. 
A  question  once  up  is  quickly  settled.  If  a  Church 
take  fire,  it  is  a  "  detached  risk."  There  is  no  chance 
for  ecclesiastical  busybodies  to  pettifog  the  Holy 
Ghost  out  of  mind  and  memoiy,  substituting  for  his 
blessed  inspiration  rules  and  by-laws  and  precedent. 

8.  Congregational  Churches  ca7t  keep  jiear  to 
Scripticre  with  iittk  effort^  because  they  have  nothing  to 
hamper  or  prejudice  them. 

You  have  noticed  that  trees  wear,  even  in  old  age, 
the  warps  and  scars  of  their  youth.  The  casualties  of 
each  year  affect  the  growth  of  the  next.  But  there  are 
some  shrubs,  like  the  raspberry  and  blackberry,  that 
every  season  send  up  fair  shoots  from  the  root,  and 
the  bruises  and  frostings  of  the  old  stock  do  not  affect 
this  new  and  vigorous  growth  from  the  earth.  Cut 
away  the  old  wood,  and  let  every  year's  berry-harvest 
be  taken  from  the  last  and  stoutest  growth. 

So  should  Congregational  Churches  be  in  their 
successive  generations.     Rooted  in  a  scriptural  faith, 


"  EXCELLENT    BIBLE-USERS.  95 

each  generation  should  grow  up  rooted  and  grounded 
for  itself,  and  not  warped  or  twisted  by  the  sins, 
growths,  and  strifes  of  the  past. 

Each  generation  should  read  and  think  for  itself, 
just  as  each  generation  eats  and  assimilates  food  for 
itself  and  makes  growth.  Religion  is  a  spiritual  life. 
It  can  be  propagated,  but  not  bequeathed.  Every 
baby  must  do  his  own  growing,  no  matter  how  tall 
his  grandfather  was ;  and  every  babe  in  Christ  must 
do  his  own  growing,  no  matter  how  excellent  the 
church  nursery  and  lofty  the  stature  of  the  "  elders." 

It  is  a  peculiar  excellence  of  all  true  and  coura- 
geous Congregational  Churches  that  they  need 
have  no  tradition  between  them  and  the  Bible,  and 
so  can  and  ought  to  understand  Scripture  far  better 
than  other  churches. 

I  say  can  and  ought  to.  I  do  not  say  that  they  do. 
For  the  freedom  that  permits  approach  to  the  gospel 
fountain  to  drink,  every  man  for  himself,  is  also  free- 
dom to  wander  in  desert  and  stony  places,  to  be  cast 
down  of  devils  and  fill  the  darkness  with  incoherent 
howlings. 

The  meek  will  he  guide  in  judgment^  and  the  meek  will 
he  teach  his  way. 


g6  INDEPENDENT. 

Because,  then,  an  Independent  Church  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  true  congregation,  ready  to  take  any 
shape  that  may  be  for  edification  ;  — 

And  because  in  its  feebleness  and  necessity  it  must 
needs  preach  and  practise  universal  toleration,  and 
sometimes  attain  even  unto  charity  ;  — 

And  because  in  its  loneliness  it  is  driven  into  close 
company  with  the  words  of  Jesus  and  away  from  the 
traditions  of  men ;  — 

And  because  whenever  the  word  "  church  "  occurs 
in  the  New  Testament  the  well-informed  reader  sees 
"congregation  "  shining  through  ;  — 

And  because  like  David,  the  light-footed  and  bold, 
the  Independent  can  snatch  a  sling  and  call  on  God, 
and  go  quickly  to  slay  Goliath ;  — 

And  because  a  little  Church  offers  no  temptation  to 
ecclesiasts  and  high-priests ;  its  fury  and  fights,  if 
they  come,  are  but  as  fire  in  a  detached  house  ;  — 

And  because  an  Independent  Church  asks  for  and 
needs  no  book  of  guidance  but  the  teachings  of  Christ 
and  the  apostles;  — 

And,  finally,  because  an  Independent  Church  may 
take  without  contradiction,  and  profit  by,  whatever  good 
is  found  in  any  and  all  other  churches ;  may  prove  all 
things  and  hold  fast  the  good  ;  may  declare  fellowship 
with  all,  and  christian  love,  without  any  sacrifice  of 


A   PLEASANT    HOME.  9/ 

consistency  or  principle ;  and  may  itself  become  an 
epitome  and  illustration  of  all  that  is  good  in  all  the 
rest :  — ■ 

Therefore  an  Independent  Church,  however  insig- 
nificant, seems  to  me  extremely  attractive  j  a  very 
pleasant  little  tabernacle  in  which  two  or  three  pil- 
grim saints  bound  for  the  holy  City  may  meet  and 
rest,  and  talk  about  the  great  temple,  and  the  un- 
counted company  of  the  redeemed  who  shall  sing  the 
new  song  there.  Their  names  are  already  written  in 
heaven. 

And  as  often  as  they  turn  aside  from  their  pilgrim 
path  on  earth,  they  seek  and  find  in  their  little  taber- 
nacles all  that  any  church  on  earth  can  give.     For, 

WHERE  TWO  OR  THREE  ARE  GATHERED  TOGETHER  IN 
MY  NAME,  said  Jesus,  THERE  AM  I  IN  THE  MIDST  OF 
THEM. 


VL 


LIBERAL  CHRISTIAN. 


LECTURE    VI. 

LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

Of  a  truth  I  PERCEIVE  THAT  GOD  IS  NO  RESPECTER  OF 
PERSONS  :  BUT  IN  EVERY  NATION,  HE  THAT  FEARETH  HIM,  AND 
WORKETH   RIGHTEOUSNESS,  IS  ACCEPTED  WITH  HIM.  —  ActS  X. 

34,  35- 

THE  number  of  Unitarians  and  Universalists 
in  this  city  (Elmira)  is  by  no  means  inconsid- 
erable. They  are  not,  however,  gathered  into  any 
one  church,  but  are  found  among  the  attendants  upon 
all  our  churches,  and  wherever  found  are  rendering 
peculiar  and  important  service  to  the  cause  of  truth 
and  religion. 

To  indicate  and  gratefully  acknowledge  some  of 
these  services  rendered  by  Unitarians  and  Univer- 
salists to  the  cause  of  christian  truth  is  the  intent  of 
this  lecture. 

A  Unitarian  is,  strictly  speaking,  one  who  affirms 
that  God  is  a  unit,  and  a  unit  only.  So  Jesus  quoted 
to  the  scribe,  —  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord;  and  so 
the  scribe  unreproved  replied,  —  There  is  one  God,  and 
there  is  none  other  but  he.  Accordantly  a  Unitarian 
denies  that  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  very  God. 


102  LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

A  Universalist  is,  strictly  speaking,  one  who  af- 
firms that  all  men  shall  be,  sooner  or  later,  saved,  — 
not  one  shall  be  lost.  God^  he  says,  will  have  all  men 
to  he  saved.  In  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive.  Salva- 
tion, safety,  is  universal,  say  they,  and  so  they  are 
called  Universalists. 

But  these  definitions  do  not  do  justice  to  the  people 
who  are  called  Unitarians  and  Universalists.  In- 
deed they  find  it  impossible  to  describe  themselves  or 
write  their  own  creed. 

Neither  do  these  two  classes  of  people  necessarily 
belong  together.  Though  they  agree  upon  many 
topics,  yet  the  two  denominations  fuse  and  flow  reluc- 
tantly in  one  stream,  to  be  called  Liberal  Christians. 

To  one  familiar  with  the  history  of  christian  doc- 
trine and  the  growth  of  systematic  theology,  the  ex- 
istence and  usefulness  of  Unitarian  and  Universal- 
ist protestants  seem  well-nigh  inevitable.  They  must 
needs  come  to  pass.     It  cannot  be  otherwise.     See !  — 

Men  must  reason.  Men  must  pry  into  the  unknown. 
Men  always  beheve  more  than  they  can  prove.  If 
they  build  up  from  th-e  bottom  a  substantial  temple, 
fact  on  fact,  they  are  scientific  reasoners.  If  they  take 
wing  and  fly  up  on  high  to  make  discoveries,  then  they 
are  prophetic  or  poetic  reasoners. 

Of  course  the  scientific  reasoners  are  the  safer  rea- 


SCIENCE   VS.   THEOLOGY.  IO3 

soners.  If  astronomers,  for  instance,  reason  aright, 
the  punctual  planets  will  prove  the  reasoning  true.  If 
they  reason  erroneously,  the  stars  in  their  courses  will 
fight  against  them.  The  safety  of  scientific  reasoning 
is  in  this  fact,  that  we  are  compelled  to  verify  our  con- 
clusions by  new  appeals  to  Nature  herself  We  can 
build  our  house  very  high,  but  it  will  surely  fall  unless 
it  be  founded  upon  a  rock,  and  be  built  up  like  one 
house  of  a  great  block,  or  one  tower  of  a  great  temple, 
agreeing  in  style  and  strength  wdth  the  rest  of  the 
structure. 

But  when  men  have  certain  great  spiritual  facts  or 
thoughts  given  to  them,  relating  to  beings  and  worlds 
and  experiences  unseen  yet  influential,  they  cannot 
help  reasoning  about  them,  adjusting  them  so  as  to 
show  their  consistency,  or  arranging  them  so  as  to  dis- 
cern their  law  and  gain  some  momentum  or  help  to- 
ward the  computation  of  truth  not  yet  revealed. 

These  reasonings  are  scientific  in  their  form,  but  not 
in  their  substance.  When  tw^o  such  reasoners  compare 
their  views,  it  is  not  like  the  comparison  of  two  as- 
tronomers looking  out  at  the  stars,  or  two  chemists  re- 
performing  the  same  experiment,  or  two  accountants 
summing  again  the  same  stubborn  figures.  But  it  is  two 
thinkers  telling  their  thoughts,  —  two  dreamers  com- 
paring dreams.     The  stones  of  which  they  build  their 


104  LIBERAL   CHRISTIAN. 

imposfng  structures  are  not  stubborn  facts  of  the  ex- 
ternal or  material  world  ;  but  are  ideas  which  have  no 
existence  except  in  the  minds  of  these  "great  thinkers." 
For  the  hearer  outside,  these  ideas  live  in  words.  But 
what  word  ever  spoken  by  man  is  equivalent  to  the 
idea  which  he  meant  to  express  by  it  ?  These  dream- 
ers, therefore,  or  theologians,  are  in  fact  comparing 
words,  though  they  suppose  themselves  to  be  compar- 
ing views  ;  and  their  structures  are  built  of  words  ;  and 
their  reasonings  are  word-reasonings ;  and  their  strifes 
are  "strifes  about  words." 

In  process  of  time  these  word-heaps  will  become  so 
vast  and  high  that  none  but  the  more  learned  can 
rightly  appreciate  their  structure.  The  unlearned  have 
neither  time  nor  ability  to  follow  the  subtle  word-trim- 
ming and  word-fitting ;  and  so,  as  common  people  be- 
lieve an  almanac  though  they  cannot  compute  one, 
the  common  people  of  the  church  believe  the  creed 
though  they  cannot  build  it  or  prove  it. 

Thus  the  fathers  cease  from  doctrine,  /.  e.  teaching, 
and  begin  dogma,  /.  e.  assertion,  —  "  the  which  except 
"  every  one  do  keep  whole,  without  doubt  he  shall  perish 
"  everlastingly,"  they  pleasantly  assure  us. 

The  only  check  upon  theological  rationalism  is  the 
collision  that  must  come  to  pass  between  these  ration- 
alizing theologians.      But   if,  unfortunately,  any   one 


OF   THE   TRINITY.  IO5 

phase  of  rationalism  gain  the  ascendancy  over  all 
others,  so  as  to  be  able  to  destroy  or  silence  the  rest, 
then  at  once  this  victorious  creed  becomes  the  chariot 
of  reason  run  away  headlong ;  and  no  man  can  pre- 
dict to  what  lengths  of  essential  absurdity,  yet  verbal 
consistency,  the  uncontrolled  steeds  will  not  go. 

Of  these  general  princijoles  the  history  of  every 
doctrine  in  the  christian  church  affords  illustration.  I 
will  exhibit  two  or  three. 

I.    Of  the  Trinity  :  — 

Opening  the  New  Testament,  we  find  the  words 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  We  find  trinitarian 
proof-texts,  and,  of  course,  Unitarian  proof-texts 
also.  Early  christians,  receiving  the  facts  of  the  gos- 
pel, out  of  warm  hearts  began  their  doxologies,  in 
which  we  discern  a  certain  threeness,  neither  more  nor 
less  than  what  we  discern  in  the  New  Testament.  By 
and  by  some  are  annoyed  by  the  insult  offered  to  rea- 
son by  saying  that  three  are  one  and  that  one  is  three. 
One  class  will  hold  fast  the  intelligible  one  and  ques- 
tion the  mysterious  three.  Another  class  will  hold 
fast  the  experimental  three  and  question  the  mysterious 
one.  It  must  needs  be,  if  men  reason  about  God,  they 
will  become  rationalistic  Unitarians  or  else  rational- 
istic trinitarians,  between  whom  I  know  not  that  there 
is  any  great  choice. 
5"* 


I06  LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

It  happened  —  I  say  happejied — that  rationalistic 
trinitarians  at  one  time  and  another  in  influential 
councils  of  the  church  have  out-voted  the  Unitarians  ; 
and  so,  ages  long  since,  by  vote  of  a  majority  it  was 
settled  what  was  orthodoxy  and  what  was  heresy. 
And  when  trinitarians  had  purged  themselves  of  all 
Unitarian  errors,  having  turned  out  the  heretics  and 
consigned  them  to  a  double  death,  then  began  a  mag- 
nificent riot  and  runaway  of  reason,  triumphing  in 
creed  statements,  of  which  common  men  judged  as 
they  did  of  old-fashioned  medicines,  —  the  worse  the 
taste  the  better  the  physic,  —  the  more  startling  the 
statement  and  seemingly  absurd,  the  deeper  the  rea- 
soning that  demonstrates  it  and  the  piety  that  accepts 
it  without  question.  Thus  dogma  took  the  place  of 
doctrine,  or,  in  plain  English,  assertion  took  the  place 
of  teaching.  Uncontradicted  doctors  smote  Reason 
in  the  face  in  the  name  of  religion.  I  cannot  better 
make  you  understand  these  statements  than  by  read- 
ing to  you  pure  and  simple  what  is  called  the  Athana- 
sian  creed. 

"Whosoever  will  be  saved,  before  all  things  it  is 
"  necessary  that  he  hold  the  catholic  faith. 

"Which  faith  except  every  one  do  keep  whole  and 
"  undefiled,  without  doubt  he  shall  perish  everlastingly. 

"  And  the  catholic  faith  is  this  :  —  That  we  worship 
*'one  God  in  Trinity,  and  Trinity  in  Unity. 


ATHANASIAN  CREED,  SO  CALLED.     lO/ 

"  Neither  confounding  the  Persons  nor  dividing  the 
"  substance. 

"  For  there  is  one  Person  of  the  Father,  another  of 
"  the  Son,  and  another  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"  But  the  Godhead  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of 
"  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  all  one  3  the  gloiy  equal,  the  ma- 
"jesty  co-eternal. 

"  Such  as  the  Father  is,  such  is  the  Son,  and  such  is 
"  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"  The  Father  uncreate,  the  Son  uncreate,  and  the 
"  Holy  Ghost  uncreate. 

"  The  Father  incomprehensible,  the  Son  incompre- 
"hensible,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  incomprehensible. 

"  The  Father  eternal,  the  Son  eternal,  and  the  Holy 
"  Ghost  eternal. 

"  And  yet  they  are  not  three  eternals,  but  one  Eter- 
«  nal. 

"  As  also  they  are  not  three  incomprehensibles,  nor 
"  three  uncreated,  but  one  Uncreated  and  one  Incom- 
"prehensible. 

"So  likewise  the  Father  is  almighty,  the  Son  al- 
"  mighty,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  almighty. 

"And  yet  there  are  not  three  almighties,  but  one 
"  Almighty. 

"So  the  Father  is  God,  the  Son  is  God,  and  the 
"  Holy  Ghost  is  God. 


I08  LIBERAL   CHRISTIAN. 

"  And  yet  there  are  not  three  gods,  but  one  God. 

"  So  likewise  the  Father  is  Lord,  the  Son  Lord,  and 
"  the  Holy  Ghost  Lord. 

"  And  yet  not  three  lords,  but  one  Lord. 

"  For  like  as  we  are  compelled  by  the  christian 
"  verity  to  acknowledge  every  Person  by  himself  to  be 
"  God  and  Lord  j  so  are  we  forbidden  by  the  catholic 
"  religion  to  say,  there  be  three  gods,  or  three  lords. 

"  The  Father  is  made  of  none,  neither  created  nor 
"  begotten. 

"  The  Son  is  of  the  Father  alone  ;  not  made,  nor 
"  created,  but  begotten. 

"  The  Holy  Ghost  is  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  ; 
"  neither  made,  nor  created,  nor  begotten,  but  proceed- 
"  ing. 

"  So  there  is  one  Father,  not  three  fathers ;  one 
"  Son,  not  three  sons  ;  one  Holy  Ghost,  not  three  holy 
►"ghosts. 

"  And  in  this  Trinity  none  is  afore  or  after  other ; 
"  none  is  greater  or  less  than  another. 

"  But  the  whole  three  Persons  are  co-eternal  togeth- 
"  er  and  co-equal. 

"  So  that  in  all  things  as  is  aforesaid,  the  Unity  in 
"  Trinity  and  the  Trinity  in  Unity  is  to  be  worshipped. 

"  He  therefore  that  will  be  saved  must  thus  think 
"of  the  Trinity." 


UNITARIAN    VICTORY.  lOQ 

And  yet  I  venture  to  say  that  no  unlettered  man  ever 
did  so  think  of  the  Trinity  j  neither  can  he  so  think  of 
the  Trinity  if  he  try;  and  he  who  tries  until  he  seems  to 
have  succeeded,  will  probably  have  so  damaged  his 
understanding  by  the  effort,  as  to  be  saved,  not  by  the 
creed  he  has  swallowed,  but  because  of  the  compassion 
universally  accorded  to  the  feeble-minded,  the  crazy, 
or  the  otherwise  irresponsible. 

So  long  as  the  orthodox  church  flaunts  the  Athana- 
sian  creed  as  a  banner,  so  long  there  will  be  need  of 
opposing  ranks  to  declare  the  rights  of  reason  and 
of  private  judgment  and  well-ordered  speech. 

But  whenever,  as  by  the  episcopal  church  in  this 
country,  this  creed  banner  is  furled,  and  warlike  trini- 
tarianism  ceases  its  unchristian  threatfulness,  straight- 
way the  errand  of  Unitarianism  m  that  direction 
ceases  \  and  we  shall  find,  as  we  find  to-day,  conspicu- 
ous Unitarians  praying  to  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  con- 
spicuous trinitarians  preaching  the  humanity  and 
graces,  as  well  as  grace,  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

In  this  so  great  congregation  doubtless  more  than 
one  half  of  you  have  never  listened  to  an  old-fash- 
ioned trinitarian  or  Unitarian  sermon.  You  would 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  such  discourses  were  ever 
written,  or,  being  written,  were  listened  to.  But  if  at 
any  time  pastors   begin   to    preach   the   Athanasian 


no  LIBERAL   CHRISTIAN. 

creed,  depend  upon  it  the  Spirit  of  God  will  raise  up 
equally  mistaken  Unitarians  for  their  destruction, 
even  as  in  India  the  devastation  of  the  wild  hog  is 
something  tempered  by  the  ravening  tiger.  That 
land,  however,  is  most  to  be  desired  as  a  home,  which 
is  neither  cursed  by  wild  hogs  nor  saved  by  tigers. 

Against  another  dogma  of  rationalizing  or  system- 
making  orthodoxy,  Unitarians  and  Universalists 
equally  protest. 

2.   Of  man!s  depravity  and  its  origin. 

Every  man  has  found  it  experimentally  true,  that, 
when  he  would  do  good,  evil  is  present  with  him.  If 
any  man  say  he  is  without  sin,  he  deceiveth  himself. 
We  cannot  do  the  things  that  we  would.  Death  has 
passed  upon  all  men  for  that  all  have  sinned.  Here  is 
a  universal,  experimental  truth,  common  to  all  religions, 
certified  by  every  intelligent  conscience  on  the  globe. 
Here  is  a  fact.  Reason  begins  to  inquire  as  to  the 
age  of  this  fact,  and  the  cause  of  this  fact,  —  the 
dimensions  and  degree  of  this  depravity.  Such  in- 
quiries are  natural.     They  are  inevitable. 

So  will  come  to  pass  orthodox  reasoners.  And 
partly  from  Scripture  and  partly  from  their  own  deep 
and  gloomy  consciousness  they  will  develop  the  doc- 
trine of  man's  total  inabilit}^,  his  utter  and  entire 
depravity.     Being  unable  to  find  its  beginning  in  this 


ORIGIN   OF   EVIL.  Ill 

generation,  and  as  little  in  the  one  preceding,  and  so 
back  and  up  the  stream  of  time,  they  come  by  a  logi- 
cal necessity  to  the  first  man.  What  can  they  do 
except  say  that  "  In  Adam's  fall  we  sinned  all "  ?  One 
doctor  in  one  way  and  another  in  another  will  show 
the  reasonableness  and  justness  of  lodging  a  whole 
race  and  its  destinies  in  the  loins  of  one  man,  and 
making  the  issue  of  heaven  or  hell  for  inconceivable 
millions  of  the  groaning  or  rejoicing  to  depend 
upon  the  behavior  of  this  one  man  at  one  trial  or 
test  of  his  virtue. 

Now  when  men  have  been  promiscuously  damned 
for  a  generation  or  two,  and  every  priest  and  every 
preacher  has  denounced  them  because  of  their  sin 
(and  this  they  indeed  deserve),  because  of  their  sin 
not  only,  but  also  has  called  it  original  sin,  —  sin  that 
was  born  with  them,  —  sin  that  came  from  father 
Adam,  —  sin  that  damned  them  before  they  were 
born,  —  sin  that  compels  a  million  or  more  of  help- 
less heathen  to  curl  in  everlasting  anguish  to  every 
one  saint  that  has  escaped  and  attained  the  heavenly 
felicity !  By  and  by  insulted  reason,  bruised  and  sad 
at  heart,  will  hear  a  strange  new  melody  in  the  simple 
words  spoken  a  thousand  times,  —  Our  Father 
WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN,  —  and  by  a  blessed  insurrec- 
tion wdll  burst  the   bonds   of  a  long  captivity  j  will 


112  LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

deny  with  Pelagius  that  babies  are  born  devils ;  deny- 
that  all  men  sinned  in  Adam  and  are  justly  con- 
demned for  his  transgression ;  deny  that  God  hates 
men  and  stands  a  consuming  fire,  their  most  dreadful 
enemy. 

So  it  will  come  to  pass  that  the  same  quality  of 
mind  that  protests  against  the  Athanasian  creed  in  its 
excesses  will  also  protest  against  the  cold,  inhuman 
theories  as  to  evil  in  Adam  and  the  consequent  perdi- 
tion of  his  posterity. 

On  a  protest  like  this  Unitarians  and  Univer- 
SALiSTS  will  be  in  very  close  sympathy.  By  and  by, 
when  these  christian  brethren  have  suffered  hardness 
as  good  soldiers  a  sufficient  length  of  time,  the  effect 
of  their  protest  will  be  readily  detected  in  the  teach- 
ings and  creeds  of  all  the  so-called  orthodox  churches. 
There  is  not  a  church  in  this  city,  nor  a  minister  of 
the  gospel  of  any  creed,  who  dares  to  preach,  as  his 
own  faith,  any  one  of  a  half-dozen  sermons  on  the 
fall  in  Adam  and  the  imputation  of  his  sin  to  his  pos- 
terity, —  sermons  of  men  like  Timothy  Dwight,  or  Dr. 
Bellamy,  or  Dr.  Emmons,  or  Jonathan  Edwards. 

But  citizens  all !  whether  orthodox  or  liberal,  re- 
ligious or  irreligious,  rationalistic  or  simple-minded  in 
your  faith,  I  take  you  to  witness  in  this  hour,  that  by 
the  testimony  of  your  own  condemning   conscience, 


OF   EVERLASTING   PUNISHMENT.  II3 

accusing  and  not  excusing ;  by  the  spectacle  of  your 
past  life  and  its  pathway  strewn  with  broken  purposes 
of  good ;  by  the  fearfulness  of  your  own  thought  of 
judgment  and  exact  reckoning  with  God  j  by  the 
volume  of  those  many  secret  thoughts,  selfish,  sinful, 
unlovely,  which  you  dare  not  confess  to  your  nearest 
friend  :  by  these  resistless  evidences  and  testimonies 
I  certify  and  accuse  you  that  ye  are  erring  sinful  men ; 
that  we  all  like  lost  sheep  have  gone  astray.  And 
while  I  thank  Unitarians  and  Universalists  for 
having  something  humbled  the  cruel  rationalism  of 
orthodoxy,  and  compelled  something  like  meek  and 
gentle  utterance  from  the  theologians  of  to-day, 
yet  the  fact,  the  gloomy,  dreadful  fact  with  which 
these  theologians  began  their  reasonings  nor  Unita- 
rian nor  Universalist,  alas !  can  ever  deny  or  de- 
stroy.    No  heresy  can  extirpate  sin  and  death. 

In  the  same  general  way  rational  Universalists 
have  been  needed  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  rational 
damnationists.  Be  it  always  remembered  that  religion 
is  above  reason. 

3.   Of  everlasting  punishment :  — 

The  christian  religion  has  this  in  common  with  all 
other  religions,  that  it  is  a  plan  of  salvation,  —  a  plan 
by  which  men  may  escape,  or  at  least  hope  to  escape, 
the  evil  to  come  ;  evil  which  cannot  be  better  ex- 

H 


114  LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

pressed  than  in  the  words  of  Scripture,  —  a  fearful 
looking  for  of  judgment  to  come  and  fiery  indignation. 

Men  must  reason.  They  will  theorize  as  to  the  de- 
tail of  this  eternal  woe.  By  and  by  we  shall  find  the 
pious  poets  of  perdition  hardening  their  visions  slowly 
into  dogmas  of  damnation. 

Men  will  become  so  wonted  to  a  lurid  background 
to  the  gospel  picture,  that  they  can  with  difficulty  con- 
ceive of  a  gospel  or  a  grace  of  God,  if  by  any  chance 
the  pit  of  hell  should  prove  to  have  a  bottom  or  the 
fires  thereof  be  ever  quenched. 

Richard  Baxter  could  not  perfect  his  "  Sainfs  Rest,''^ 
except  he  first  depict  the  sinner's  torment.  Hear 
him  :  — 

"  The  principal  author  of  hell  torments  is  God  him- 
"  self.  As  it  was  no  less  than  God  whom  the  sinner 
"  had  offended,  so  it  is  no  less  than  God  who  will  pun- 
"  ish  them  for  their  offences.  He  hath  prepared  these 
"  torments  for  his  enemies." 

"  The  torments  of  the  damned  must  be  extreme,  be- 
"  cause  they  are  the  effect  of  divine  vengeance.  Wrath 
"  is  terrible,  but  revenge  is  implacable.  When  the  great 
"  God  shall  say,  '  My  rebellious  creatures  shall  now 
"pay  for  all  the  abuse  of  my  patience;  remember 
"  how  I  waited  your  leisure  in  vain,  how  I  stooped  to 
"  persuade  and  entreat  you.     Did  you  think  I  would 


BAXTERS   POETRY.  II5 

"  always  be  so  slighted  ? '  Then  he  will  be  revenged 
"  for  every  abused  mercy  !  " 

"  Consider  also  that  though  God  had  rather  men 
"would  accept  of  Christ  and  mercy,  yet  when  they 
"  persist  in  rebellion,  he  will  take  pleasure  in  their 
"  execution." 

"  The  guilt  of  their  sins  will  be  to  damned  souls  like 
"  tinder  to  gunpowder,  to  make  the  flames  of  hell  take 
"  hold  upon  them  with  fury.  The  body  must  also  bear 
"  its  part.  That  body  which  was  so  carefully  looked 
"  to,  so  tenderly  cherished,  so  curiously  dressed,  what 
"  must  it  now  endure  ?  " 

"  But  the  greatest  aggravation  of  these  torments 
"  will  be  their  eternity.  When  a  thousand  millions  of 
"  ages  are  past,  they  are  as  fresh  to  begin  as  the  first 
"  day.  If  there  were  any  hope  of  an  end,  it  would 
"  ease  the  damned  to  foresee  it ;  hvX  forever  is  an  intol- 
"  erable  thought.  They  were  never  weary  of  sinning, 
"  nor  will  God  be  weary  of  punishing.  They  never 
"  heartily  repented  of  sin,  nor  will  God  repent  of  their 
"  suffering." 

"  What  if  thou  shouldst  see  the  devil  appear  to  thee 
"  in  some  terrible  shape  !  Would  not  thy  heart  fail 
"  thee  and  thy  hair  stand  on  an  end  ?  And  how  wilt 
"  thou  endure  to  live  forever,  where  thou  shalt  have  no 
"  other  company  but  devils  and  the  damned  !  " 


Il6  LIBERAL  CHRISTIAN. 

That  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
is  no  longer  thus  represented  by  christian  preachers 
and  theological  writers,  and  that  the  moral  sense  of  all 
who  hear  these  terrible  words  is  shocked  at  their  in- 
humanity, is  due  in  large  measure  to  the  determined 
and  incessant  protest  of  Universalists. 

Thus  as  to  the  Trinity,  the  origin  of  evil,  and  the  na- 
ture and  duration  of  eternal  punishment,  we  have  no- 
ticed a  little  in  detail  the  chastening  which  specula- 
tive and  pseudo-scientific  orthodoxy  has  received  at 
the  hands  of  protesting  Unitarians  and  Universal- 
ists. In  these  particulars  their  work  has  been  a  nega- 
tive work,  —  strong  and  passionate  denial. 

But  they  have  been  allowed  to  afford  valuable  af- 
firmative contributions  also  to  the  general  conscious- 
ness of  the  christian  church.  Writers  like  Thomas  k 
Kempis  have  sufficiently  developed  the  mystic  and 
passionate  sympathy  of  the  christian  soul  with  Christ ; 
but  the  Christ  of  Thomas  a  Kempis  and  of  similar 
writers  is  not  a  man  pure  and  simple.  And  we  owe  to 
distinctively  Unitarian  writers  the  emphatic  assertion 
that  Jesus  was  a  7'eal  7fian.  Ernest  Renan,  while  he 
shocks  every  christian  reader  by  his  scientific  incredu- 
lity, his  denial  of  miracles,  and  his  rejection  of  Christ 
our  God,  nevertheless  profits  also  every  christian 
reader  by  the  breadth  and  depth  and  vividness  of  that 


GOD    OUR   FATHER.  11/ 

historic  man  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Be  it  remembered 
always  that  Jesus  was  a  model  man  as  well  as  a  re- 
vealed God.  To  deny  or  forget  his  humanity  is  as 
great  a  loss  to  the  christian  as  to  deny  or  forget  his 
divinity.  It  is  as  important  to  know  what  manner  of 
man  we  may  hope  to  become  as  it  is  to  know  what 
manner  of  being  God  is. 

For  wholesome  views  of  what  the  race  of  man  has 
become  by  reason  of  sin,  I  bid  you  consult  the  testi- 
mony of  the  so-called  orthodox.  For  equally  whole- 
some views  of  what  man  may  become  by  the  grace  of 
God,  I  bid  you  consult  the  delineations  of  Jesus  Christ 
furnished  to  us  and  to  the  church  of  God  by  the  better 
class  of  Unitarian  writers. 

That  is  a  truly  christian  church  in  which  the  mem- 
bers adore  the  sovereignty  of  God  with  Dr.  Emmons, 
and  walk  with  Jesus  whom  Dr.  Channing  loved  but 
feared  to  worship. 

In  like  manner  of  the  Universalists  I  note  :  — 
The  cha7igeless  love  and  fatherhood  of  God  is  their  con- 
tribution to  christian  consciousness. 

Many  men  are  timid  in  giving  utterance  to  this  great 
truth,  lest  they  seem  to  subtract  from  the  justice  of 
God  as  a  "  righteous  moral  governor."  Having  un- 
consciously built  up  the  law  into  a  pile  that  overtops 
God  himself,  theologians  unwittingly  present  us  with 


Il8  LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

a  God  who  seems  in  perplexity  how  to  indulge  his 
fatherly  inclinations  without  damage  to  his  govern- 
ment. Hotv  can  he  be  just  and  yet  justify  1  is  the  ques- 
tion that  fills  theologians  with  anxiety. 

The  Universalist  has  reminded  us  that  the  father- 
hood of  God,  and  that  he  has  a  heart,  are  truths  quite 
as  important  as  the  governorship  of  God  and  that  he 
has  a  law.  The  christian  truth  is  that  God  who  was  in 
the  dying  Christ  cannot  be  more  emphatically  revealed 
than  he  was  then  and  there,  as  the  great-hearted,  de- 
voted, self-sacrificing,  loving  Father ;  and  at  the  same 
awful  moment  all  may  read,  too,  that  the  wages  of  sin 
is  death  ;  sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  death, 
and  God  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty. 

At  our  peril  we  let  go  of  either  truth,  —  the  love  of 
God  so  magnified  by  the  Universalists,  or  the  terror 
of  the  Lord  so  incessantly  proclaimed  by  the  ortho- 
dox. 

We  may  notice,  too,  that  these  Unitai'ians  and  Uni- 
versalists have  nsually  rendered  their  testimony  at  con- 
siderable cost  to  themselves. 

Contrary  to  what  we  should  expect,  magnanimity 
and  compassion  are  not  the  attributes  of  God  popularly 
acceptable.  The  masses  of  men  being  selfish  and  in- 
clined to  tyrannize,  readily  accept  a  tyrannic,  passion- 
ate,  tormenting  God ;  for   such  a  God  they  would 


GENERALLY  UNPOPULAR.         II9 

themselves  be  if  they  had  a  chance.  And  although 
one  would  suppose  that  men  would  like  to  hear  the 
sweet-sung  prophecies  of  universal  and  indiscriminate 
salvation,  yet  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  priests  and 
preachers  who  scare  people,  and  then  admit  them  to 
safety  at  a  reasonable  cost,  and  by  a  mode  sufficiently 
mysterious,  have  always  been  more  popular  than  the 
philosophic  and  philanthrophic  Unitarians  and  Uni- 

VERSALISTS. 

Whatever  of  excellence  and  of  credit  belongs  to 
men  who  assert  unpopular  convictions  at  cost  to 
themselves  is  due  to  great  numbers  of  Unitarians 
and  Universalists.  There  are  regions,  of  course,  such 
as  Boston  and  Cambridge,  where  scholarly  and  ration- 
al Unitarianism  or  Deism  is  at  once  an  elegant 
speculation  and  a  popular  creed.  But  as  a  general 
rule  these  brethren  are  in  a  minority ;  and  when  they 
hold  fast  their  faith,  and  with  reasonable  modesty  de- 
clare their  dissent  from  prevailing  creeds,  their  courage 
and  independent  thought  are  truly  excellent ;  and 
their  chastening  effect  upon  the  general  christian  con- 
sciousness is  not  less  to  their  credit,  in  that  it  has 
been  rarely  acknowledged  and  never  welcome. 

It  will  be  found,  too,  that  these  brethreji  are  pro- 
moters of  intelligence  and  defenders  of  our  piihlic  schools 
as  beifig  in  theniselves  a  positive  good  regardless  of  ajtd 


120  LIBERAL   CHRISTIAN. 

separable  from  religmi.  They  will  he  found  at  work 
with  the  more  intelligetit  of  all  denominations  in  every 
enterprise  of  public  spirit  and  material  welfare. 

Being  less  encumbered  with  metaphysical  theories 
and  dogmatic  systems  than  many,  they  can  liberate  a 
larger  force  of  money  and  work  and  enthusiasm  where- 
with to  attack  and  destroy  the  evils  of  to-day.  These 
brethren  will  see  and  declare  that  to-day  is  the  matrix 
of  to-morrow.  That  this  year  is  mother  of  next  year. 
That  our  life  in  the  flesh  is  the  germ  of  our  life  in  the 
spirit,  and  that  he  who  does  the  best  possible  thing  for 
to-day  is  doing  also  the  best  possible  thing  for  to-mor- 
row and  for  all  days.  Their  danger  will  be  of  exces- 
sive worldliness,  which  very  tendency  is  the  antidote 
and  limit  for  excessive  other  worldliness,  which  is 
superstition. 

Not  dreaming  that  I  have  anything  near  exhausted 
my  subject,  I  must  nevertheless  make  an  end. 

As  in  previous. lectures  of  this  course,  so  in  this,  I 
have  carefully  abstained  from  indicating  many  vital 
points  upon  which  I  suppose  Unitarians  and  Uni- 
VERSALiSTs  cach  in  their  way  have  erred  from  truth,  — 
erred  as  widely  as  they  say  that  I  have.  Our  differ- 
ences are  fundamental.  They  have  been  topics  of 
controversy  between  earnest  men  ever  since  the 
second  century. 


HAS    FOUNDATION    IN    SCRIPTURE.  121 

As  a  mathematician  I  shall  never  attempt  to  square 
the  circle.  I  shall  never  again  invent  perpetual  mo- 
tion. These  two  problems  have  received  sufficient 
attention.  For  the  same  reason  I  here  and  every- 
where decline  to  take  part  in  any  controversy  that  for 
sixteen  hundred  years  has  attracted  earnest  minds, 
disputing  as  to  the  Godhead,  the  person  of  Christ,  the 
origin,  and  term  of  evil,  and  the  destiny  of  the  human 
race.  A  controversy  that  has  raged  so  long  is  not 
likely  ever  to  come  to  an  end.  The  problems  involved 
are  insoluble  until,  being  born  again,  we  see  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

Nay,  more.  Upon  opening  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  a  tranquil  and  contented 
christian  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that  very  broad 
and  plain  testimonies  are  there  given,  which  at  least 
seem  to  justify  the  so-called  errors  of  Unitarians  and 
Universalists.  And  I  know  not  in  what  direction  to 
look  for  an  authoritative  and  final  exposition  of  Script- 
ore. 

So  long  as  they  call  on  God,  lifting  up  holy  hands 
without  wrath  or  doubting,  and,  with  me,  are  prompt 
^nd  heartfull  in  saying  Our  Father  which  art  in 
heaven,  who  am  I  that  I  need  judge  the  servant  of 
another?  What  am  I  that  with  condemning  zeal  I 
should  denounce  my  brethren  t 
6 


122  LIBERAL    CHRISTIAN. 

Without  meaning  to  or  needing  to  surrender  one 
point  of  the  faith  called  orthodox,  nor  softening  one  of 
its  hard  and  exact  lines  of  what  I  call  truth,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  altogether  possible  that  citizens  of  one 
city  and  incarnate  souls  worshiping  God  in  one  great 
congregation,  differ  as  they  may  upon  their  specula- 
tive and  dogmatic  systems,  may  also  walk  together 
in  mutual  respect  and  in  co-operations  absolute  and 
whole-hearted,  in  whatsoever  things  are  true,  what- 
soever things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just, 
whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are 
lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report. 

For,  of  a  truth,  I  perceive  that  God  is  no  re- 
specter OF  PERSONS  :  BUT  IN  EVERY  NATION,  HE  THAT 
FEARETH  HIM,  AND  WORKETH  RIGHTEOUSNESS,  IS  AC- 
CEPTED WITH  HIM. 


VII. 

CHOOSING  ONE'S  CHURCH 


LECTURE    VII. 

CHOOSING    ONE'S    CHURCH. 

"  What  shall  we  then  say  to  these  things  ? "  —  Romans 
viii.  31. 

A  LECTURE  of  review  and  general  remark  seems 
called  for  at  this  point,  in  order  to  utilize  some 
of  the  truth  which  has  been  gained  by  the  study  in 
detail  of  Our  Seven  Churches.* 

I.  To  admit  the  excellence  of  Seven  different 
Churches,  and  allow  to  each  of  them  the  title 
"  christian "  may  disturb  the  faith  of  some,  and 
cause  others  to  fall  into  indifferentism,  if  not  con- 
tempt for  all  churches. 

I  have  seen  children  whose  joy  in  the  possession 
of  an  apple,  an  orange,  and  a  stick  of  candy  at  a 
picnic  was  something  less  because  every  other  boy  and 
girl  of  the  Sunday  school  received  a  similar  gift. 
In  like  manner  some  men  cannot  enjoy  their  own 
church,  unless  able  to  look  down   upon  others  and 

*  Roman  catholic,  presbyterian,  episcopal,  methodist  episco- 
pal, baptist,  congregational,  and  liberal  christian. 


126  CHOOSING   one's    CHURCH. 

say,  Mine  is  better  than  yours.  An  effort  to  show  that 
all  churches  are  good  enfeebles  the  relish  of  them  who 
enjoy  chiefly  the  conviction  that  their  own  church  is 
best. 

2.  But  beside  these  are  many  who  are  endeavoring 
to  lead  a  christian  life  without  any  church.  Some  of 
these  go  so  far  as  to  avow  dislike  of  all  churches. 
They  declare  that,  as  administered  by  men  and  among 
men,  churches  are  so  childish,  selfish,  and  corrupt  that 
the  christian  believer  would  better  let  them  all  alone. 
Church  orga7iizatio?i,  say  they,  is  anti-  Christ. 

Such  should  remember  the  words  and  the  example 
of  Jesus  Christ:  —  The  scribes  and  pharisees  sit  in 
Moses'  seat  :  all  therefore  whatsoever  they  bid  you 
observe,  that  observe  and  do.*  And  again  he  told 
the  leper  whose  flesh  after  years  of  scab  and  dry- 
ness had  come  to  him  as  the  flesh  of  a  little  child  : 
Go  thy  way,  show  thyself  to  the  priest,  and  offer  the 
gift  that  Moses  commanded.f  Of  all  churches  that 
have  blessed  or  cursed  mankind,  none  has  been  and 
none  can  ever  be  straiter  or  stronger  or  more  de- 
nominational than  this  church  of  Israel ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  all  men  that  have  ever  dwelt  in 
churches  and  received  benefit,  attaining  in  them  a 
spiritual  stature  that  made  them  superior  to  all 
*  Matt,  xxiii.  2,  3.  t  Matt.  viii.  4, 


ALL   NEED    A    CHURCH.  12/ 

churches,  no  better  sample  can  be  found  than  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  in  this  narrow  church  of  Israel.  In 
short,  the  world's  straitest  sect  and  the  world's 
broadest  man  appear  in  history  as  mother  church 
and  dutiful  son. 

These  precepts  and  this  example  of  Jesus  Christ 
should  forever  discourage  the  inclination,  too  fre- 
quently gratified  in  these  latter  days,  to  break  away 
from  churches  and  organizations  for  the  sake  of  lib- 
erty and  spiritual  growth.  We  need  to  attain  to  a 
Christ-like  reverence  for  tradition  and  love  of  church 
on  the  one  hand,  and  an  equally  Christ-like  radical- 
ism and  independence  of  thought  on  the  other. 

Churches  are  related  to  spiritual  development  as 
dock-yards  are  to  great  ships,  that  defy  the  storm, 
because  they  have  been  made  strong  in  docks  quiet 
as  duck-ponds.  No  ships  can  be  built  at  sea.  But 
for  the  law,  prophets,  and  church  of  Israel  there  had 
been  no  Simeons,  Annas,  Elizabeths,  nor  blessed 
Mary  .and  her  Son.  Abolish  churches,  and  there 
can  be  no  pious  drill,  nor  propagation  of  a  holy 
seed,  nor  building  up  in  this  world  a  household  of 
faith.  Every  christian  must  say  to  himself:  I  am 
not  C07ne  to  destroy^  bid  to  fulfil.  It  .is  not  my  busi- 
ness to  ftud  fault  IV nil  churches  and  pull  them  doivn, 
but  rather  to  strengthen  the  things  that  remain  and  are 


128        CHOOSING  one's  CHURCH. 

likely  to  perish.  And  while  I  a7n  profiiijig  by  my  own 
church  home,  it  is  good  to  know  that  many  other 
churches  are  also  enjoying  the  presence  of  God,  in  whom 
all  the  families  of  earth  are  called. 

3.  Each  one  of  our  Seven  Churches  of  which  I 
have  spoken  claims  the  name  "  Christian."  Each  one 
appeals  to  Scripture  in  demonstration  of  its  truth  and 
excellence. 

This  is  very  discreditable  to  the  Bible,  if  the  Bible 
was  intended  as  a  form-book  for  the  regulation  of  de- 
tails, dress,  and  ceremony,  or  even  of  dogma  among 
God's  children.  For  in  these  particulars  it  has  failed 
ignominiously.  But  it  is  highly  creditable  to  the  Bible 
and  its  many-sidedness,  and  its  deep  wells  of  refresh- 
ment on  every  side,  if  we  suppose  the  Bible  to  be  a 
storehouse  of  God,  wherefrom  the  children  of  his  love 
may  draw  daily  rations  of  food  and  drink  for  souls 
that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  each  one 
receiving  according  to  his  several  necessity ;  just 
as  from  that  other  storehouse  of  God,  the  earth,  he 
giveth  food  in  every  variety,  according  to  the  need  of 
bird  and  beast  and  fish  and  reptile  and  of  man  him- 
self. As  a  book  of  ecclesiastical  regulations  the  Bible 
is  a  failure.  As  a  repast  for  saints  the  Bible  is  a  mar- 
velous success. 

And  so  these  Seven  Churches  all  profess  them- 


RIVAL   CLAIMS    CANNOT    BE    SETTLED.        1 29 

selves  christian,  and  they  all  love  the  holy  Bible,  and 
they  all  say  so,  if  not  wisely,  let  us  at  least  admit  hon- 
estly. And  upon  earth  there  is  no  tribunal  before 
which  we  can  send  up  our  church  attorneys  to  show 
their  proofs,  and  plead  their  causes,  and  ask  for  a  final 
decree  establishing  them  and  their  clients  as  the  true 
church  of  God,  —  the  only  one  upon  earth  warranted 
by  Scripture. 

Where  there  is  no  tribunal  there  can  be  no  de- 
cision; and  where  no  decision  there  can  be  no  end 
to  strife,  if  strife  be  once  begun.  Therefore  let  chris- 
tians cease  from  controversy ;  let  nothing  be  done 
through  strife  or  for  vain  glory ;  but  each  and  every 
church  being  clearly  persuaded  in  its  own  mind  will, 
in  its  contentment,  attain  to  silence  and  dignity  and 
magnanimity.  Even  the  ox  dotli  not  low  over  his 
fodder.  They  that  are  noisiest  in  church  boastful- 
ness  give  evidence  that  they  are  least  at  rest.  Woe 
unto  that  servant  who,  when  his  Lord  cometh,  shall 
be  found  beating,  abusing,  or  accusing  his  fellow- 
servants  ! 

4.  A  plausible  and  beautiful  theory  is  entertained 
by  some,  that  these  Seven  or  more  differing  Churches 
are  in  fact  a  device  of  our  Lord  by  which  he  is  dis- 
tributing the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  and  making  provision 
for  the  grades  and  types  of  spiritual  character  that  he 
6*  I 


130  CHOOSING   ONES    CHURCH. 

would  bring  to  pass  among  men.  A  beautiful  theory 
I  say.  Beyond  all  question  there  is  need  of  such  grad- 
ings  and  classifications  in  the  great  university  of  sal- 
vation. If  the  church  of  one's  childhood  insists  upon 
statements  of  truth  somewhat  strait  and  hard,  either 
the  growing  man  will  be  pinched,  or  the  church  bond 
will  be  burst,  or  he  must  be  promoted  and  enlarged 
in  an  orderly  and  regular  way.  It  is  pleasant  to  think 
that  these  Seven  or  more  Churches  are  different 
classes  of  one  great  church ;  and  that  when  a  man 
changes  his  church  it  is  for  cause  and  for  good. 

We  should  avoid  the  error  of  the  conservative.  Says 
he,  God  is  without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turfwig. 
Religious  truth  is  God's  truth,  therefore  religion  is  with- 
out variableness.  That  alone  is  true  which  is  old.  Here 
is  a  fallacy.  For  as  the  sunrise,  and  the  moon's  phases, 
and  the  tides  are  facts  with  the  fisher-boy  and  with 
the  astronomer  alike,  yet  the  thought  of  them,  and  the 
use  of  them,  and  the  words  spoken  about  them  by  Sir 
John  Herschel  and  by  the  sailor  in  his  smack  differ 
widely.  God,  and  all  things  proceeding  from  him,  — 
in  a  word,  truth,  —  does  not  change.  But  a  man's  ap- 
prehension of  truth  and  his  declarations  of  truth 
change,  unless,  indeed,  a  man  have  stupefied  himself 
or  been  overtaken  by  spiritual  atrophy  and  death. 

The  sacrifice  offered  by  Jesus  the  Christ  of  God  is  a 


GRADED  CHURCHES  NEEDED.       I3I 

fact  to  the  child  spell-bound  by  the  crucifixion  story, 
and  to  the  thoughtful  man,  who  is  questioning  about 
the  lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  and 
the  doctrine  of  a  universal,  an  incessant,  and  a  divine 
sacrifice.  But  the  boy  and  the  man  will  have  widely 
differing  thoughts  and  words  about  this  eternal  fact  of 
sacrifice. 

A  full  creed  for  a  man  and  a  full  creed  for  a  boy 
must  needs  differ.  The  church  of  one's  boyhood  can- 
not be  the  church  of  one's  manhood  except  it  be  a 
church  of  grades  and  classes.  Jesus  himself  classified 
his  hearers  and  spoke  differently  to  different  classes. 
In  the  letters  of  Paul  we  find  traces  of  grades  and 
classes  in  the  churches  to  whom  he  addressed  his  let- 
ters :  —  "  Ye  which  are  spiritual,^'  he  says  ;  "  as  many 
as  will  ho,  perfect^'  and  other  phrases  of  like  suggestion. 

In  these  days  of  graded  schools,  it  is  strange  that  re- 
ligious instruction  should  still  be  given  in  the  clumsy 
and  miscellaneous  way  that  used  to  disgrace  our  com- 
mon district  schools.  It  were  well,  therefore,  w^ere  it 
possible,  to  have  in  every  church  four  or  five  grades  or 
classes  of -religious  disciples  ;  —  the  catechumens,  the 
neophytes,  the  disciples,  the  spiritual,  and  the  perfect. 
And  as  Jesus  was  able  by  the  indwelling  Spirit  rightly 
to  divide  the  word  of  truth,  giving  a  blessing  to  the 
little  children,  and  the  deep  things  of  God  himself  to 

/ 


132  CHOOSING   ONES    CHURCH. 

his  riper  friends,  —  truths  which  even  they  could  not 
understand,  but  had  need  to  wait  for  the  interpretations 
of  the  Spirit,  —  so  the  pastor  of  a  christian  church  ought 
to  be  neither  a  novice,  nor  a  completed  man  dry  and 
inelastic,  but  like  the  great  Teacher,  with  easy  words 
for  children  and  deep  things  of  God  wherewith  to  as- 
tonish and  stagger  the  most  athletic  intellect  that  can 
be  found  in  his  flock. 

The  next  best  thing  to  a  graded  church  is,  so  the 
theory  goes,  the  incidental  gradations  and  opportuni- 
ties for  culture  afforded  by  our  Seven  or  seventeen 
Churches  ;  and  this  one  benefit  compensates  in  large 
measure  for  the  staring  evil  and  costliness  of  our  sec- 
tarian divisions. 

Perhaps  there  is  a  little  truth  in  this.  Let  us  hope 
that  more  souls  are  fed,  and  well  fed,  by  our  many 
churches,  than  could  be  fed  by  one  catholic  church. 
!Put  I  am  not  able  to  verify  this  theory  in  any  con- 
siderable detail.  We  cannot  classify  existing  denomi- 
nations. We  cannot  decide  that  this  one  is  an  infant- 
school,  and  that  secondary,  a  third  grammar,  and  a 
fourth  academic.  Our  churches  as  a  general  thing 
would  rather  be  ungraded,  clumsy  district-schools  with 
one  algebra  scholar  on  exhibition,  than  populous,  use- 
ful infant-schools,  where  all  are  simple,  child-like,  and 
all  are  growing. 


CHURCHES    GROW    MUCH   ALIKE.  1 33 

The  beautiful  theory  aforesaid  breaks  down  igno- 
miniously  when  we  inspect  the  churches  in  this  land 
of  voluntaryism.  For  as  pebbles  that  lie  along  the 
level  seashore  tend  more  and  more  toward  one  shape 
and  lose  their  angularity,  so  in  any  democratic  society 
the  tendency  is  toward  a  loss  of  singularity  among 
men,  and  a  reduction  of  people  by  ceaseless  attrition, 
and  a  general  enslavement  to  public  opinion,  to  a 
cornerless  and  meaningless  average.  In  other  words, 
dress,  character,  religion,  politics,  are  not  shaped  ac- 
cording to  any  predetermined  standard  or  pattern ; 
but  they  come  to  pass.  Men  take  shape  and  build 
up  society  pretty  much  as  pebbles  do  gravel-banks. 

Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  in  at  least  five  out  of  Our 
Seven  Churches,  that,  except  on  rare  occasions,  a 
visitor  has  need  to  ask  at  the  close  of  public  worship 
the  name  of  the  church  that  has  made  him  welcome. 
And  all  that  saves  the  other  two  churches  from  a  like 
uniformity  is  the  necessity  in  one  of  clinging  to  a 
liturgy,  and  in  the  other  of  holding  fast  to  a  dead  lan- 
guage. Even  in  these  (I  allude,  of  course,  to  the 
episcopal  and  Roman  catholic),  if  any  one  enter  and 
stay  for  a  few  months  he  will  be  surprised  to  find  how 
much  they  have  absorbed  from  the  democracy  and 
voluntaryism  of  the  American  atmosphere,  and  con- 
sequently how  much  they  have  in  common  with  all  the 


134         CHOOSING  ONES  CHURCH. 

churches  which  are  superficially  called  dissenting. 
There  are  many  churches  but  one  religion. 

I  reject  as  untenable  the  theory  that  our  many 
churches  are  profitable  because  of  any  considerable 
diversity  of  spiritual  gifts,  and  will  note  :  — 

5.  The  considerations  which  are  usually  influential 
in  settling  a  man's  church  connections. 

Few  men  have  asked,  and  fewer  still  have  truly  an- 
swered, the  question,  W/iy  am  I  a  member  of  this 
Church  ?  Comparatively  few  church-members  can 
give  a  statement  of  the  few  points  at  which  they  differ 
from  churches  of  other  names.  If,  then,  they  cannot 
tell  what  are  the  peculiarities  of  their  own  church,  it  is 
self-evident  that  they  have  not  chosen  the  church  on 
account  of  those  peculiarities. 

{a)  More  than  half  of  our  people  are  where  they  are 
by  inheritance.  They  love  the  faith  of  their  parents 
and  cling  to  the  church  of  their  childhood.  /  was 
born  and  bred  a  meihodist,  sir!  Very  good.  It  is 
much  to  your  credit  to  live  and  die  a  methodist  if  you 
are  a  growing  methodist.  For,  as  we  have  seen,*  the 
methodist  is  a  grand  man-reforming  and  soul-reviving 
church ;  and  to  honor  one's  father  and  mother,  and 
hold  fast  the  faith  and  forms  received  from  them,  is 
beyond  question  a  graceful  and  an  ennobling  trait. 

*  See  Lecture  IV. 


THE  CHURCH  IN  WHICH  CONVERTED.    1 35 

Furthermore,  in  case  of  all  backsliders  and  wander- 
ers from  the  ways  of  piety,  they  will  ordinarily  find 
that  for  the  renewal  of  spiritual  life  they  must  begin 
where  they  left  off.  They  must  go  back  through  the 
same  gap  by  which  they  broke  out.  They  must  feed 
again  in  the  pastures  of  their  childhood.  No  man 
should  be  ashamed  to  give  this  as  the  reason  of  his 
church  preference.  That  which  I  received  of  my 
parents  I  shall  prize  so  long  as  I  live,  and  shall  hand 
down  to  my  children  unimpaired. 

{b)  Next  we  have  the  class  who  hold  fast  to  the 
church  in  which  they  experienced  religion.  If  there 
is  a  revival  in  the  baptist  church,  by  a  law  of  innocent 
gregariousness  the  larger  part  of  the  converts  will  be 
buried  with  Christ  in  baptism.  Just  such  persons,  if 
converted  by  the  same  Spirit  in  the  methodist  church, 
will  naturally  and  innocently  be  distributed  into  classes, 
and  be  content  with  having  their  hearts  sprinkled  from 
an  evil  conscience,  and  their  bodies  washed  with  pure 
water  according  to  necessities  oft  recurring. 

This  law  of  loving  adherence  to  the  church  with 
which  we  experienced  religious  quickening  extends 
even  beyond  persons  and  doctrines,  and  lays  hold 
upon  meeting-houses  and  architectural  monstrosities. 
In  the  far  West,  when  christians  meet  and  plan  to- 
gether to  build  a  meeting-house,  it  will  be  found  that 


136  CHOOSING   one's   CHURCH. 

some  are  asking  for  a  room  of  this  or  that  pattern, 
and  when  they  cannot  all  be  gratified,  the  thoughtful 
among  them  will  begin  to  see  that  each  has  been  ask- 
ing for  a  rebuilding  of  the.  place  where  he  first  gave 
his  heart  to  God.  Indeed,  there  is  no  other  way  of 
making  meeting-houses  memorable  in  beauty  except 
this  of  meeting  God  therein. 

{c)  Others  still  are  led  into  the  church  where  they 
found  a  husband  or  a  wife. 

For  as  all  sins  are  of  kin,  and  visit  men  in  company 
to  curse  them,  so  all  the  nobler  passions  of  the  soul 
are  of  heavenly  race,  and  visit  the  pious  and  prayer- 
ful as  the  angels  whom  Jacob  saw  ascending  and 
descending  to  bless  the  earth  with  gifts  from  heaven. 
They  who  purely  and  truly  love,  and  ask  of  God  a 
blessing  upon  their  marriage  vow,  are  quickened 
throughout  their  entire  nature,  and,  as  never  before, 
are  facile  to  religious  influence  and  noble  in  their 
aspirations. 

By  a  law  of  natural  arrangement  the  two  will  go 
together  into  the  church  where  either  one  is  decisively 
at  home.  Statute  law  says.  Let  the  wife  follow  the 
husband,  for  he  is  the  head.  Spiritual  law  says,  Let 
these  two  go  together  to  find  a  home  ;  and  so  there  are 
blessed  thousands  who  are  in  the  church  of  their 
choice  because  they  married  into  it. 


CONGENIAL   SOCIETY   DESIRABLE.  1 3/ 

It  is  both  wise  and  honorable  to  love  a  church  for 
either  one  of  these  considerations.:  Because  it  is  the 
church  of  our  childhood  ;  because  it  is  the  church 
where  we  found  the  Lord ;  or  the  church  into  which 
we  entered  at  our  marriage. 

There  are  many  other  considerations  of  less  dignity, 
but  still  quite  innocent,  which  it  is  no  disgrace  to  a 
man  to  obey,  and  admit  that  he  has  obeyed  them. 
For  instance  :  — 

{d)  A  man  would  .better  join  a  church  where  he  is 
not  irritated  or  offended  by  uncongenial  habits,  dress, 
or  manners,  than  one  where  he  is  so  offended.  All 
churches  in  a  city  have  a  certain  social  status.  A 
man  does  well  not  to  run  a  tilt  against  the  inexorable 
stratifyings  of  society  which,  when  pervaded  by  love, 
are  the  heavenly  orders  and  degrees  of  the  kingdom  ; 
but  when  they  are  the  rankings  of  self-love  are  no 
less  inexorable,  even  though  they  be  the  ranks  of 
hateful  and  envious  men  striving  for  masteries. 

If  any  person  feels  ill  at  ease,  annoyed,  irritated, 
crossed,  by  social  influences  in  the  church  of  his 
choice,  he  does  well  to  move  out,  and  go  to  some 
other  church  where  he  can  be  at  rest,  just  as  sick 
folks  leave  New  York  and  go  to  Florida.  They  mean 
no  scorn  of  New  York,  they  do  not  boast  of  Florida. 
They  want  to  quit  coughing.     There  is  no  question  of 


138  CHOOSING   one's    CHURCH. 

principle  involved  in  a  change  of  one's  church  connec- 
tion. Churches,  like  the  sabbath,  were  made  for  man, 
not  man  for  churches.  The  old  style  congregationist 
of  New  England  naturally  becomes  a  presbyterian  in 
Philadelphia.  A  man  belonging  to  a  genteel  church 
in  Boston,  when  he  emigrates,  will  naturally  join  a 
genteel  church  in  St.  Louis,  rather  than  a  church  of 
the  same  denominational  name. 

While  all  this  is  so,  it  should  be  the  endeavor  of 
every  christian,  in  whatever  church  he  is,  to  do  his 
best  to  enlarge  the  genius  and  hospitality  of  that 
church,  and  make  it  a  pleasant  home  for  people  of 
other  ranks  and  grades  and  tastes  beside  his  own. 
He  will  endeavor  to  become  more  and  more  compre- 
hensive himself,  —  able  to  enjoy  more  and  more  sorts 
of  people,  and  by  his  example  lead  others  to  this 
Christ-like  faculty.  Our  Lord  was  at  home  with  all 
classes.  But  while  growing  towards  this  stature  of 
perfect  men  in  Christ  Jesus  it  is  not  wrong,  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  altogether  wise  and  proper,  for  people  to 
obey  their  social  instincts  in  the  choice  of  their  church. 
Let  churches  be  gathered  and  compacted  by  elective 
affinities,  and  let  no  man  be  ashamed  of  it. 

{e)  Neither  should  men  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge 
that  they  go  to  this  or  that  church  for  honest  secular 
or  pecuniary  considerations. 


CHOOSING   FOR   SAKE    OF    PAY.  1 39 

It  is  no  disgrace  to  a  young  doctor  to  look  around 
and,  finding  that  all  churches  save  one  have  four  doc- 
tors each,  to  say,  lUl  joiii  the  church  where  there  are 
no  doctors.     It  ivill  benefit  my  practice. 

Among  the  early  methodists  it  was  a  part  of  their 
church  covenant  to  help  each  other  in  business,  — 
buy  and  sell  one  to  another  rather  than  to  outsiders. 
In  this  respect  they  put  in  practice  the  precepts  of 
Paul  the  apostle  :  Let  us  do  good  unto  all,  especially 
unto  them  who  are  of  the  household  of  faith. 

Therefore  it  is  not  a  discredit  to  a  man,  providing  he 
has  sought  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  right- 
eousness, to  select,  from  among  seven  good  churches, 
that  one  for  his  home  in  which  he  can  make  the  most 
money.  But  mark !  It  is  a  sin,  if  a  man  has  been 
determined  in  his  choice  by  these  secular  considera- 
tions, to  then  stand  up  in  or  out  of  the  church  as  a 
church  champion,  ready  to  enter  into  league  offensive 
and  defensive,  and  fight  the  battles  of  the  sect,  when 
in  fact  he  cared  nothing  for  the  sect,  but  looked  only 
to  his  own  profit  in  making  his  home  with  them. 
This  is  my  proposition :  If  a  man  loves  all  the  churches, 
then  it  is  proper  for  him  to  live  with  that  church  in 
which  he  can  earn  the  most  by  doing  the  most. 

(/)  A  church  may  be  gathered  and  held  together 
by  personal  regard  for  the  pastor.     This,  though  a 


140        CHOOSING  ONES  CHURCH. 

slender,  is  yet  a  perfectly  innocent  and  sometimes 
a  profitable  and  .permanent  tie.  A  christian  will  be 
on  his  guard  lest  he  be  mistaking  pleasing  excitement 
for  the  real  food  of  sound  doctrine.  But  when  he  is 
thus  careful,  and  is  certain  in  his  own  soul  that  he  is 
fed  with  milk  and  strong  meat  both  by  this  or  that 
preacher,  it  becomes  at  once  his  duty  to  go  and  join 
the  church  where  he  can  be  fed  ;  in  so  doing  he  stands 
approved  in  his  own  conscience  and  before  God. 
This  style  of  church  is  more  frequent  in  these  days 
how  passing  than  at  any  former  time,  and  it  is  often 
blasphemed  ungenerously.  But  as  in  our  great  cities 
there  are  families  that  have  learned  to  keep  house 
and  to  perfect  a  home  who  nevertheless  send  out  to 
the  city  kitchen  to  obtain  their  food  from  absolute 
strangers,  so  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  man  to  perfect 
his  family  as  a  little  church  or  to  be  gathered  with 
others  into  a  congenial  "  set "  or  society,  and  yet  go 
away  from  them  every  Sunday,  and  every  lecture-day, 
to  get  the  religious  food  which  he  finds  most  nutritious 
for  himself  and  for  his.  There  are  a  great  many  who 
make  our  conspicuous  churches  populous,  who  have  not 
really  chosen  a  church,  but  only  chosen  a  preacher. 

I  cannot  stay  to  specify  any  more  of  the  consider- 
ations usually  undeclared,  which  control  men  in  the 
choice  of  their  church.     I  am  safe  in  saying  that  not 


IN   WHATEVER   CHURCH,    CONTENT.  I4I 

two  men  in  a  hundred  are  related  to  the  church  of 
their  choice  because  of  any  clear,  intelligent,  or  rational 
estimate  of  her  claims  as  being  exclusively  the  church 
of  God.  Of  the  millions  who  make  the  Roman  catho- 
lic church  so  blessedly  populous,  not  one  in  a  thou- 
sand can  defend  the  church  of  his  choice  by  any  in- 
telligent marshalling  of  her  claims.  It  is  the  church  of 
his  fathers.  It  is  holy  mother  church.  In  a  less  de- 
gree, the  same  is  true  of  members  of  all  our  churches. 
Since,  then,  in  their  practical  administration,  all 
churches  are  so  much  alike,  and  since  so  very  few 
of  the  members  of  any  church  are  able  to  explain  or 
justify  the  church  in  which  they  have  their  home,  it 
follows  that  any  discussion  or  strife  between  churches, 
any  comparison  of  their  claims,  any  boastfulness  or 
rivalry  between  them,  are  unwise,  unreasonable,  and 
to  be  abjured.  It  is  a  blessed  thing  to  be  gathered 
into  any  church.  It  is  a  cursed  thing,  having  been 
gathered  in,  to  blaspheme  the  dwelling-place  of  other 
saints.  A  church  however  good,  however  founded  by 
the  law  and  upon  the  word  of  God,  if  it  be  indwelt  by 
a  spirit  contentious  and  uncharitable,  ceases  to  be  a 
church  of  Christ,  as  the  Tuileries  ceased  to  be  a  royal 
residence  when  the  sans  culotte  went  raging  through 
the  halls  and  pictured  galleries,  foaming  with  blas- 
phemy and  athirst  for  blood. 


142  CHOOSING    ONES    CHURCH. 

In  choosing  a  church,  therefore,  far  more  depends 
upon  the  temper  with  which  we  go  forth  to  seek, 
than  upon  the  church  in  which  at  last  we  come  to 
rest. 

A  man  who  would  find  a  church  that  shall  profit 
him  should,  first  of  all,~emancipate  himself  from  slav- 
ery to  names.  In  this  age  and  in  this  land,  names 
of  churches  have  ceased  to  describe  them  with  any 
accuracy.  Then,  hungering  and  thirsting  after  right- 
eousness and  christian  grace,  let  the  seeker  visit  every 
church  within  his  reach,  preparing  himself  by  prayer 
and  by  self-abasement ;  rendering  to  each  at  every 
visit  his  full  contribution  of  money,  sympathy,  and 
prayer,  let  him  sit  and  share  in  the  services  not  as  a 
critic,  still  less  as  a  censor. 

When  thus  he  has  tried  all  churches  within  his  reach, 
then  let  him  come  back  to  any  one  that  may  seem 
best  for  him,  and  ask  for  the  lowest  place  among  its 
members.  As  he  enters  in  and  is  enrolled  let  him 
say  to  every  one  that  asks  :  —  /  cannot  tell  whether 
this  he  the  best  chii7'ch  in  the  world,  still  less  whether 
it  he  the  true  church.  Of  ojie  thing  07ily  I  am  certain, 
that  it  is  the  best  church  for  me.  In  it  I  am  as  nearly 
conte7ited  as  a  partly  sanctified  man  can  be  this  side  the 
general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born  whose 
names  are  written  in  heaven. 


VIII. 


THE   CHURCH  OF  CHRIST 


LECTURE   VIII. 

THE  CHURCH   OF   CHRIST. 

"  I    SPEAK    CONCERNING     CHRIST    AND     THE     CHURCH."  — 
Ephesians  v.  32. 

WE  find  among  men  bodies  of  christian  believ- 
ers who  claim  to  be  this  Church  of  Christ, 
and  to  derive  peculiar  and  exclusive  grace  from  him 
the  head.  If,  then,  there  be  five  or  fifty  of  these  sepa- 
rate bodies,  and  each  body  claims  to  be  the  one  true 
and  only  Church  of  Christ,  the  conflict  of  these 
claims  shows  that  a  majority  of  the  men  who  claim  to 
have  found  the  Church  of  Christ  on  earth  are  mis- 
taken. 

In  contrast  with  this  confusion,  notice  the  precision 
and  unity  with  which  Jews  can  point  out  from  their 
Scriptures  the  origin  of  their  church,  which  was,  no 
doubt,  the  visible  church  of  God.  A  mere  boy  can  find 
in  the  Old  Testament  the  call  of  Abraham  ;  the  cove- 
nant with  his  seed  j  the  deliverance  of  the  people  from 
slaveiy  in  Egypt ;  their  equipment  as  a  church  and 
nation  under  Aaron  and  Moses.  Every  reader  sees 
7  J 


146  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

at  a  glance  that  the  service  of  the  sanctuary  belongs 
to  the  tribe  of  Levi ;  the  priesthood  is  in  the  line  of 
Aaron  ;  and  so  on  to  the  uttermost  detail  of  sacrifice 
and  ceremony. 

How  different  the  result  when  we  go  with  christian 
believers  to  inquire  of  the  New  Testament  which  one 
of  many  corporations  is  the  Church  of  Christ  !  A 
man  who  asks  this  question  is  in  danger  of  being 
buried  alive  by  the  storm  of  replies  that  come  whirl- 
ing in  on  him  from  every  quarter  of  contradiction. 

In  other  words,  when  God  undertook  to  found  a 
visible  Jewish  church,  he  as  usual  succeeded,  and 
made  himself  understood.  I  therefore  conclude  that 
since  he  has  not  made  himself  well  understood  in 
the  matter  of  a  visible  christian  church,  he  has  not 
intended  to  found  one  upon  earth. 

Jesus  seems  to  have  taught  this  as  he  sat  by  the 
well  of  Samaria  and  said  :  —  The  hour  cometh  when  ye 
shall  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  yet  at  Jerusalem, 
worship  the  Father.  Ye  worship  ye  know  not  what : 
we  know  what  we  worship  :  for  salvation  is  of  the 
Jews.  But  the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  true 
worshipers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in 
truth  :  for  the  Father  seeketh  such  to  worship  him. 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must  wor- 
ship him  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 


CHURCH    OF    CHRIST    UNLIKE    ISRAEL.         I47 

Here  we  have  the  contrast  between  the  visible 
church  of  Israel  and  the  invisible  Church  of  Christ. 
Israel  a  gathered  and  visible  corporation  with  "  ordi- 
nances of  divine  service,"  "  an  earthly  sanctuary,"  a 
tabernacle  and  its  furniture,  ordained  priests  and  their 
duty,  a  high -priest  and  his  sole  function  ;  by  which 
splendid  apparatus  the  Holy  Ghost  prophesied  con- 
cerning the  holiest  of  all,  into  which  the  way  was  not 
manifest  while  the  tabernacle  and  temple  were  yet 
standing. 

In  contrast  with  this,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  a 
corporation  not  yet  gathered ;  without  ordinances, 
without  an  earthly  sanctuary,  without  a  tabernacle, 
without  ordained  priests,  without  a  high-priest  on 
earth.  It  is  the  whole  company  of  them  who,  being 
quickened  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  do  ever  worship  God  in 
spirit  and  in  truth.  And  as  pilgrims  of  old  came  from 
all  lands  to  worship  in  Jerusalem,  a  city  beautiful  for 
situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  ;  so  these  spirit- 
ual worshipers  from  every  land  are  journeying  as  pil- 
grims to  the  New  Jerusalem,  to  the  temple  whose 
glory  shall  never  pass  away. 

The  first  questions  that  bred  strife  in  the  apostolic 
churches  handled  this  very  matter  of  form  versus 
spirit.  Well-meaning,  conscientious,  pious  Jews,  hav- 
ing received  in   full  volume  the  benefit  of  an  estab- 


148  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

lished  church,  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the  apostle 
Paul,  and  were  full  of  anxiety  because  of  the  new  and 
disorderly  little  societies,  that  had  no  rules  and  by-laws, 
nor  any  guidance  except  the  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Here  is  the  exact  spot  at  which  the  christian 
church  takes  its  departure  from  the  Jewish  church 
not  only,  but  from  all  other  visible  churches  as  well. 
In  Christ  Jesus  neither  ceremony  nor  lack  of  cere- 
mony profits,  but  a  new  creature. 

It  must  needs  be,  however,  that  christian  men  will 
be  drawn  together  by  their  affinities;  and  as  they 
dwell  together  will  take  on  habits  ;  and  all  these  habits 
of  associated  christians  are  good  if  caused  by  a 
christian  spirit,  and  if  they  increase  the  same ;  and  all 
these  habits  are  bad  if  they  be  a  mere  legacy  of  an- 
cestral usage,  neither  proceeding  from  nor  quickening 
the  spirit  of  the  children. 

All  churches  of  Christ,  so  called  by  men,  have 
in  their  membership  more  or  less  christians ;  and 
these  christians  in  every  church  are  members  elect  of 
Christ's  Church.  By  their  graces  and  goodness  the 
churches  to  which  they  belong  are  beautified  and  made 
of  good  repute.  These  true  christians  are  found  in 
their  churches  as  gold  is  found  in  its  veins.  Men  nat- 
urally look  in  quartz  veins  to  find  gold  and  in  churches 
to  find  christians.     They  are  found  there  in  greater 


HOW   TO   AVOID    ARROGANCE.  I49 

abundance  than  elsewhere.  But  still  there  is  more 
quartz  than  gold  in  our  gold  veins,  and  it  may  be  that 
many  are  called  and  few  are  chosen  in  our  churches. 
Gold  is  found,  too,  in  river-beds,  apart  from  any  vein, 
like  those  rare  but  royal  christians,  who,  without 
church  help,  are  mingling  with  men,  all  uncorroded, 
clean,  and  shining,  like  gold  grains  in  the  sand. 

Jesus  has  taught  us  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
as  a  net  cast  into  the  sea,  bringing  all  manner  of  fish 
unto  the  shore.  Great  churches  seem  to  me  great  nets, 
small  churches  small  nets ;  and  until  these  gospel  fish- 
eries are  over  and  ended,  and  their  proceeds  assorted, 
it  will  not  be  known  which  one  of  our  many  denomi- 
nations called  christian  comes  nearest  to  deserving  the 
title. 

And  here  we  may  see  how  unfortunate  it  is  for  any 
denomination  or  church  to  claim  to  be  exclusively  The 
Church  of  Christ.  Not  injurious  to  others  but  un- 
fortunate for  herself  Of  course  any  church  or  de- 
nomination may  call  itself  the  church  of  Christ,  — 
"  The  "  instead  of  "  A  "  church  of  Christ.  But  in 
one  of  two  ways  this  mistake  will  work  a  great  sorrow. 
For  a  man  must  either  :  —  {a)  Stultify  himself  by 
saying  in  one  breath,  — Miiie  is  the  true  churchy  but  still 
I  am  not  a  bigot  and  other  churches  are  just  as  good^ 
which    is   sheer   stupidity,  or   else :  —  ib)    He   must 


150         THE  CHURCH  OF  CHRIST. 

firmly  and  consistently  declare  the  perdition  of  all  men 
who  do  not  belong  to  his  chosen  church.  What  can 
be  more  self-satisfied,  not  to  say  conceited  and  arro- 
gant, "*  than  to  count  up  the  members  of  one's  own  de- 
nomination, a  little  company  at  largest,  little  as  com- 
pared with  the  whole  race  of  man,  and  say  of  this 
mere  handful,  —  These  and  these  only  God  loves.  For 
all  the  other  millions  he  hath  prepared  the  furnace  and 
the  fire  / 

To  avoid  this  collision  between  one's  reason  and 
one's  religion,  it  is  only  necessary  to  accept  the  New 
Testament  doctrine  as  to  the  Church  of  Christ  and 
the  kingdom  of  God.  That  there  is  not  upon  earth  a 
visible,  corporate  Church  of  Christ  with  headquar- 
ters in  Jerusalem  or  Samaria,  Rome  or  Moscow,  Pekin 
or  Salt  Lake  City.  There  are,  thank  God,  millions 
of  unmistakable  christians  in  the  world,  but  not  one 
church  that  can  claim  for  herself  as  a  corporation  any 
pre-eminence  or  special  title  to  the  name  christian. 
The  primary  import  of  the  word  "  church  "  is  assembly^ 
company^  congregation.  And  as  deserts  take  their  color 
from  the  color  of  each  grain  of  sand,  so  churches 
take  their  quality  and  derive  their  right  to  the  name 
christian  from  the  quality  of  the  members.  An  as- 
sembly of  christians  is  a  christian  church,  no  matter 
*  But  still  consistent,  see  pp.  9,  10,  supra. 


MAN  NEEDS  A  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.     I5I 

how  organized.  An  assembly  of  robbers  is  a  thieving 
church.    An  assembly  of  firemen  is  a  fireman's  church. 

And  any  assembly,  for  whatever  purpose  organized, 
the  moment  its  members  receive  the  Spirit  and  graces 
of  Christ,  becomes  by  that  blessed  receiving  a  christian 
church.  And  on  the  other  hand  there  is  no  church 
known  among  men,  however  apostolic  in  origin  and 
venerable  by  reason  of  age,  but  becomes  at  once  anti- 
christian  and  evil  the  moment  that  its  members  cease 
to  be  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

We  thus  conclude  that  there  are  many  churches  or 
assemblies  of  christians  upon  earth  and  among  men, 
but  no  one  great  universal  Church  of  Christ.  And 
yet:  — 

2.   Man  needs  a  universal  or  catholic  church. 

Men  taken  one  by  one  are  insignificant.  Men  when 
united  are  capable  of  greatness  and  achievement  quite 
inconceivable.  The  history  of  human  progress  is 
therefore  a  history  of  successful  association.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  history  of  human  disaster  is  a  history 
of  collisions,  by  which  associations  or  nations  have 
been  broken  up  in  mid-voyage,  and,  foundering,  have 
gone  under. 

You  will  notice,  too,  that  the  men  in  history  who  seem 
to  have  been  leaders,  heroes,  or  demigods  are  great 
rather  by  their  position  than  in  themselves.     They  are 


152  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

the  tips  of  great  pyramids,  —  the  most  conspicuous 
stone  of  the  heap  because  hfted  up  by  all  the  other 
stones  that  underlie  them  in  useful  obscurity.  Or, 
changing  the  figure,  as  the  South-sea  surf-rider  keeps 
his  little  float  underneath  him  and  neither  behind  nor 
ahead  of  the  rushing  wave,  and  so  doing  seems  to  be 
master  of  the  wave,  of  which  he  is  in  fact  a  most  obse- 
quious servant ;  so  of  prelates  in  the  church,  and  gen- 
erals in  armies,  and  potentates  on  thrones,  and  presi- 
dents in  republics,  they  owe  what  they  have  of  reputed 
greatness  to  their  ability  to  top  the  wave  of  people 
who  are  moving  obedient  to  what  is  called  the  ten- 
dency of  the  times. 

Forces  among  men  are  social  forces,  not  individual 
forces.  Compulsions  are  social  compulsions,  not  in- 
dividual. Achievements  are  social,  not  individual.  As 
was  said  in  the  beginning  by  the  Lord  himself:  —  This 
people  is  one.  They  have  all  one  language.  Noth- 
ing will  be  restrained  from  them  which  they  have  im- 
agined to  do. 

Because  man  gains  so  much  by  working  with  his 
fellow-man,  and  loses  so  much  by  quarrelings  and  di- 
visions, the  dream  of  philanthropists  in  all  ages  has 
been  to  perfect  society  and  make  it  endure.  Such 
men  feel  and  say  that  the  welfare  of  one  man  and  the 
welfare  of  all  men  should  not  conflict  j  that  the  need 


SOCIALISTIC    FAILURES  I53 

of  the  race  is  rightly  organized  society ;  that  social 
wrong  is  the  fecund  parent  of  personal  sin ;  and  that 
society  as  a  whole,  as  it  has  been  the  cause,  should 
become  the  cure,  of  the  woes  that  afflict  men. 

Some  with  one  theory  and  some  with  another,  some 
in  one  land  and  some  in  another,  are  ever  working  to 
solve  the  same  problem, — to  build  society  so  justly 
that  the  building  shall  not  fall.  They  believe  in 
man.     They  "  have  high  hopes  for  humanity." 

These  philosophers  and  philanthropists  fail  so  uni- 
formly that  many  men  are  ashamed  to  acknowledge 
that  they  are  interested  in  any  such  social  questions. 
Many  men  are  ashamed  to  be  called  socialists.  And 
yet  Jesus  Christ  was  the  most  radical  socialist  that 
ever  lived.  That  they  all  may  he  one,  is  the  end  and 
aim  of  his  entire  undertaking.  He  differs  from  the 
Babel-builders  called  socialists  among  men  in  just 
this  :  —  He  undertakes  at  the  outset  to  renew  the 
character  and  temper  of  each  member  of  his  pro- 
posed society.  Or,  using  the  apostle's  metaphor,  he 
shapes  one  by  one  the  "  living  stones  "  of  his  temple, 
and  when  all  are  at  last  prepared  he  proposes  to  lay 
them  up  according  to  a  divine  pattern. 

Other  socialists  set  the  blind  to  lead  the  blind; 
balance  one  wrong  by  another  wrong ;  and  try  to  com- 
pact in  one  society  men  whose  only  agreement  is  their 


154  THE    CHURCH    OF   CHRIST. 

discontent.  Jesus  Christ,  in  contrast,  begins  with  one 
general  condemnation  of  all  men.  He  declares  that 
the  first  step  toward  the  kingdom  of  heaven  —  that  is, 
eternal  society  —  must  be  a  renewed  heart  in  each 
member;  and  he  gives  himself  to  this  work  by  a 
magnificent  sacrifice  of  himself.  He  lays  aside  his 
glory  and  God-hood  to  offer  himself  at  once  a  ransom 
and  an  inspiration  for  a  mighty  multitude  of  men,  — 
men  who  at  his  call  deny  themselves  and,  bearing  a 
cross  daily,  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  God  manifest. 

By  and  by  these  renewed,  transformed,  regenerated 
sons  of  men  shall  come  for  the  first  time  to  such 
quality  and  stature  that  they  can  be  put  together  and 
kept  together  in  one  body,  without  fault,  or  flaw,  or 
fear  of  schism.  A  glorious  church,  not  having  spot, 
or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing. 

Because  man  cannot  renew  his  own  heart  nor  the 
heart  of  his  neighbor,  therefore  man  cannot  gather 
nor  govern  a  church  universal.  Because  God  can 
renew  the  hearts  of  men,  purging  away  the  last  trace 
of  selfishness  and  taint  of  sin,  therefore  God  can 
gather  and  govern  a  church  universal.  And,  blessed 
be  his  name,  God  will  gather  such  a  church,  and  the 
gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  her.  Upon  her 
glory  shall  come  no  dimness  and  to  her  greatness  no 
reduction. 


THE   SOVEREIGN    CHOICE    OF    GOD.  1 55 

3.  Godwin  yet  gather  and  perfect  this  Grand  Society 
ofivhich  all  the  prophets  hav^  spoken  since  the  world  began. 

It  is  for  this  special  work  that  Jesus  has  been  set 
-apart,  —  the  Christ  of  God,  to  rule  over  things  in 
heaven,  in  earth,  and  under  the  earth. 

Be  it  remembered  that  this  Church  of  Christ  is 
a  company  or  society,  chosen  and  gathered  by  him 
according  to  his  own  sovereign  choice.  We  may  or 
may  not  understand  the  reasons  that  influence  him  in 
his  choice.     Who  hath  known  the  mind  of  God  ? 

Be  it  remembered,  too,  that  men  are  taught  all 
things  concerning  Jesus  Christ  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 
Comforter.  Remember  also  that  this  divine  Teacher 
proceeding  from  the  Father  and  Son  has  not  put  him- 
self, that  we  know  of,  under  guardianship  of  any  man 
or  church  of  men.  He  has  no  business  agent  to 
make  appointments  for  him.  He  inspires  whom  he 
will.  Ye  hear  the  sound  of  him,  but  ye  cannot  tell 
whence  he  cometh  nor  whither  he  goeth.  So  is  every 
one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit.  In  other  words,  each 
member  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  being  effectually 
called  and  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  thus  a  dis- 
tinct and  separate  work  of  God.  No  church  of  men 
can  at  all  better  his  credentials,  and  no  church  can 
separate  him  from  the  love  of  God  that  is  in  and 
through  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord. 


156  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

I  note  with  repetitious  emphasis  that  God  has 
intrusted  all  choice  and  judgment  to  his^son  Jesus 
Christ,  and  all  effective  instruction  to  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Therefore  let  no  man  pretend  to  say  how  many  or 
how  few  are  to  be  gathered  into  this  Church  of 
Christ. 

Beyond  all  question,  the  ever-blessed  Trinity  is 
working  with  power  in  the  lines  and  with  the  ap- 
paratus of  "evangelic  churches,"  as  we  call  them. 
But  is  there  no  residue  of  the  Spirit  ?  Must  we  refuse 
to  hope  that,  in  ways  and  by  instruments  beyond  all 
that  we  can  even  think,  God  is  working,  in  every  land, 
among  them  who  fear  him  and  are  working  righteous- 
ness ? 

My  brethren,  I  come  to  you  with  a  very  high  argu- 
ment, an  argument  that  moderates  alike  the  pre- 
sumption and  the  despair  of  men. 

To  you  that  are  cast  down  because  preaching  seems 
powerless,  revivals  rare,  and  churches  thinly  peopled, 
I  come  saying,  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to  raise 
up  members  for  his  intended  Church.  The  word 
of  God  goes  sounding  round  the  globe,  a  daily 
tide  proceeding  forth  from  him  as  sunlight  from  the 
sun,  and  nothing  is  hid  from  the  power  of  it.  The 
work  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  is  and  always  was 
beyond  all  that  we  can  understand  or  measure.     And 


THE   SURPASSING   GLORY   OF   GOD.  1 5/ 

SO  this  great  work  of  gathering  up  and  perfecting  a 
mighty  Church,  bright  as  the  sun  and  fair  as  the  moon, 
is  from  beginning  to  end,  from  first  to  last,  God's 
work.  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  ye  believe  in 
God.  All  things  are  working  together  for  good  unto 
them  who  love  God,  unto  them  who  are  called  ac- 
cording to  his  promise. 

On  the  other  hand  ecclesiastical  pride  and  presump- 
tion are  humbled  by  this  doctrine.  The  works  of  man 
when  contrasted  with  nature  and  tested  by  her  forces 
shrink  up  and  are  as  nothing.  How  atom-like  the 
hugest  ship  that  ever  floated,  when  the  storm  is 
abroad,  and  the  dark  places  of  the  great  deep  are 
revealed  !  How  like  chaff  the  works  of  men  are 
scattered  and  driven  by  the  tornado  !  How  worth- 
less a  great  city  swept  by  an  enraged  river  or  shaken 
by  a  ten-seconds  earthquake !  People  who  dwell 
along  the  earthquake  belts  make  no  large  attainment 
in  economic  art.  Their  houses  are  one  story,  cheap, 
elastic.  They  live  in  the  shadow  of  danger,  the  fear 
of  death.  Face  to  face  with  nature  in  her  destruc- 
tive mood,  they  never  forget  their  own  feebleness. 
They  cannot.  Their  fear  breeds  thoughtfulness,  or 
at  least  superstition. 

Now  these  forces  of  nature  are  but  feeble  types  of 
God's  greatness  and  energy,  —  his  power  to  destroy. 


158  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

Keaven  is  his  throne,  earth  his  footstool.  He 
speaks  and  the  mountains  melt,  or  timid  flee  and 
are  lost  in  the  deep.  He  makes  the  winds  his  mes- 
sengers. He  sends  forth  the  lightnings  as  angels  — 
they  gleam  as  they  go.  There  is  none  like  unto  our 
God.  To  know  him  is  to  fear  him.  O  come,  let  us 
worship  and  bow  down,  and  kneel  before  the  Lord  our 
Maker. 

Of  God  thus  revealed  I  am  saying,  that  of  his  own 
will  he  has  chosen  to  gather  a  mighty  multitude  whose 
beginnings  were  in  the  flesh  ;  —  to  gather  and  perfect 
them  one  by  one,  and  all  in  one,  till  they  shall  be- 
come, by  his  power  working  in  them,  one  Body  so 
penetrated  and  possessed  by  his  Spirit  that  it  shall 
be  accepted  into  the  Godhead  ;  and,  through  espousal 
with  the  Son,  be  one  with  Him,  and  -with  the  Father, 
and  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  Having  this  purpose,  con- 
ceived in  wisdom,  quickened  by  love,  made  possible 
by  unbounded  power,  God  himself  warrants  its  con- 
summation. No  man  can  add  to  the  number  of  the 
elect.  No  archangel,  glorified  or  damned,  can  take 
away  one  atom  from  this  eternal  crystal.  It  is  the 
Church  of  Christ  which  he  hath  redeemed  to  him- 
self out  of  all  lands  and  every  nation,  and  through  all 
ages. 

Now,  brethren,  I  protest  that  no  man  can  really 


WHO    ARE   MEMBERS    OF    IT.  1 59 

believe  in  this  Holy  Catholic  Church,  and  ever 
again  be  much  upUfted  in  contemplation  of  that  lit- 
tle church  of  his  choice  here  among  men,  be  the 
same  what  we  call  large  like  Rome,  or  small  like 
the  last  quaker  first-day-meeting.  No  man  can  have 
been  caught  up  by  the  Holy  Ghost  until  hf  truly  and 
thriUingly  believes  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church, 
and  ever  afterward  find  much  to  boast  of,  and  far 
less  to  fear,  in  connection  with  those  pleasant  little 
companies  of  men  in  uniform,  who  call  themselves 
the  Church  of  Christ  on  earth.  This  high  argu- 
ment as  to  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  is  thus,  as  we 
said,  strength  to  the  feeble-minded,  joy  to  the  poor 
in  spirit,  comfort  to  the  mourning ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  brings  chastening  to  the  pomp  and  pride  of 
prelacy,  and  gives  meaning  to  the  apostle's  word  :  — 
Brethren,  give  diligence  to  make  your  calling  and 
election  sure.  It  is  God  that  worketh  in  you  to 
will  and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure. 

4.    Who  are  fnembers  of  this  Church  of  Christ  ? 

If  an  artillery  officer  were  to  order  a  private  in  his 
command  to  pile  a  thousand  cannon-balls  in  a  solid 
pile,  without  any  spaces  between  them,  the  private, 
however  humble,  would  be  able  at  once  to  see  and 
to  say,  //  ca7it  be  done,  sir! 

But  if,  in  contrast,  a  master  mason  should  take  a 


l60        THE  CHURCH  OF  CHRIST. 

workman  out  upon  a  lot  and  show  him  a  thousand 
hewn  stone,  no  two  ahke,  and  not  one  complete  in 
itself,  and  should  say,  These  are  to  be  laid  up  into  a 
house,  the  workman  could  at  once  see  and  fe^l  that 
the  thing  is  not  only  possible,  but  probable. 

In  like  manner,  of  certain  classes  of  men,  the  hum- 
blest intelligence  can  perceive  that  being  round  and 
hard  and  self-centred,  complete  in  their  own  pleas- 
ures, they  cannot,  by  any  possibility,  be  wrought  into 
a  social  body.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  qualities 
of  mind  and  character,  in  a  word  ^^ gifts,''  so  desirable 
and  yet  so  various,  distributed  among  men,  that  it  is 
plain  at  a  glance,  that,  whether  we  can  organize  them 
or  not,  they  were  made  to  be  organized.  In  ^lort,  of 
certain  men  it  can  be  clearly  seen  that  they  are  not, 
and  cannot  be,  of  the  Church  of  Christ  ;  while  of 
others  it  can  be  seen  clearly  that  they  are  fitted' for 
special  places  in  some  society  —  a  church  of  some 
sort,  whether  of  Christ  or  not  is  a  further  question. 

Suppose,  next,  that  our  master  mason  is  himself  led 
forth  by  an  architect,  who  carries  with  him  drawings 
of  a  proposed  building ;  and  they  two  go  a-field  among 
the  hewn  stones,  to  see  whether  they  can  pick  out 
from  among  these  curiously  shaped  fragments  suit- 
able pieces  to  build  the  house  which  the  architect 
has  planned.      As   the   plans   are  unrolled  and  the 


THREE   CLASSES    OF    MEN.  l6l 

mason  looks  them  over,  he  says  naturally,  Good  sir, 
it  will  cost  less  to  heiv  ftew  stofies,  and  shape  ihe?n 
so  as  to  agree  with  your  plans,  than  it  will  to  pick 
Old  and  fix  over  these  that  are  already  shaped  for 
other  plans.  Here  are  unhezvn  blocks  ready  to  take  a?iy 
shape. 

By  these  illustrations  I  set  forth  that  there  are 
three  classes  of  men.  {a)  Self-centred  men,  who 
can  touch  but  never  be  united  with  others,  {b)  The 
shaped  and  fitted  for  societies  and  partnerships  that 
have  already  existed,  being  filled  with  love  of  church 
or  love  of  country,  or  pride  of  race  or  family.  And 
{c)  Men  who  have  refused  to  be  conformed  to  the 
requirements  of  this  world's  prosperity,  and  who  by 
every  act  declare  that  they  wish  to  be  shaped,  so  as 
to  become  fitted  members  of  a  society  yet  to  be  gath- 
ered. 

The  Church  of  Christ,  when  gathered  and  per- 
fected, will  be  found  to  consist  largely  of  men  from 
this  last  class,  —  men  who  have  no  love  for  them- 
selves and  who  have  not  been  conformed  to  the 
principles  or  societies  of  this  present  world. 

Whether  any  of  the  first  two  classes  will  have  place 
in  the  Church  of  Christ  is  more  than  we  can  fore- 
see. Paul  indicates  that  there  are  likely  to  be  wise 
master-builders  who  upon  the  foundation  Jesus  Christ 

K 


1 62  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

will  build  gold,  silver,  and  precious  stones.  There  are 
to  be  little  societies,  blessed  christian  families,  hum- 
ble, simple  christian  churches,  that  so  dwell  together 
in  faith  and  hope  and  love,  that  the  members  are 
really  shaped  according  to  a  heavenly  pattern  al- 
ready. The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  come  and  the 
will  of  God  is  done  in  earth  as  in  heaven.  Just 
where  or  how  many  of  these  blessed  societies  are 
to  be  found  among  men  we  cannot  say.  Happy  are 
they  who,  before  their  translation,  have  a  foretaste  of 
the  heavenly  unity,  and  who  know  for  certain  that 
having  dwelt  in  love  upon  earth,  they  are  about  to 
dwell  in  God  forever. 

But  beside  these  who  receive  a  heavenly  shaping  are 
great  multitudes  in  and  around  our  churches  who  are 
shaped  by  anti-Christ  Upon  them  usages  and  tricks 
of  will-worship  are  stamped  by  a  weight  of  supersti- 
tion and  conformity.  Devotees  are  squeezed  out  of 
shape,  into  a  shapely  unity,  like  figs  in  their  drum  or 
raisins  in  a  box.  The  package  is  shapely,  but  the 
fruits  that  are  packed  have  lost  all  beauty.  To  what 
extent  these  devotees  can  be  unpacked  and  restored 
to  their  original  grace  is  more  than  I  can  say. 

There  are  great  multitudes  who  are  fairly  represented 
by  unhewn  stone  waiting  the  fashioning  hand  of  the 
skilful  workman.     Great    numbers   of   men   in    and 


THE    LAST    WHO    SHALL   BE   FIRST.  1 63 

around  our  churches,  upon  whose  spirit  has  been  im- 
pressed the  fear  of  God  which  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom.  They  have  been  so  possessed  by  this  one 
salutary  truth  that  they  have  ceased  from  man  ;  have 
ceased  from  their  own  ways  and  works ;  have  passed 
all  their  days  in  patience,  and  in  innocence,  and  in  wait- 
ing for  somewhat  that  they  could  not  describe.  Not 
seeing,  they  yet  believe.  These  are  the  poor  in  spirit 
of  whom  Jesus  said — Theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
These  are  the  publicans  who  at  the  church  doors  smite 
their  breasts  and  dare  not  lift  up  so  much  as  their  eyes 
unto  heaven,  of  whom  Jesus  said  —  They  are  justified. 
These  are  the  little  ones  of  whom  it  was  said  —  It  is 
your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom. 
These  are  the  last  who  shall  be  first.  These  are  they 
of  whom  this  world  is  not  worthy.  And  they  are  a 
mighty  multitude  whom  no  man  can  number.  They  can- 
not always  bear  examination  as  to  the  great  doctrines  of 
the  law  or  of  the  gospel.  They  cannot  say  yea  or  nay 
to  the  pretensions  of  an  overbearing  church  of  which 
they  may  or  may  not  be  members,  whether  pagan, 
Mohammedan,  Buddhist,  Roman,  or  presbyterian.  To 
them  the  earth  beneath  is  God's  earth,  the  sky  above 
is  God's  sky,  the  stars  are  eyes  of  angels,  the  sun's  up- 
rising is  God's  outshine,  the  flowers  are  his  fancy-work, 
the  mountains  his  masonry.    The  heavens  declare  his 


164  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

glory,  the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork.  Day 
unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night  showeth 
knowledge. 

Of  this  great  class,  then,  in  all  ages  and  among  all 
races,  I  would  say,  they  are  the  un shaped,  unhewn 
stones  of  Christ's  temple.  They  are  the  uneducated 
members  of  Christ's  Church.  They  are  neither 
sphered,  self-centred,  nor  selfish.  They  are  not  shaped 
and  fitted  to  base  or  narrow  uses  and  the  special  needs 
of  men  ;  nor  yet  have  they  taken  the  graceful  forms 
which  belong  to  the  saints.  They  are  the  "  other 
sheep  "  of  whom  Christ  spoke.  They  may  not  yet  be 
gathered  into  this  or  that  fold.  They  are  the  ones  of 
whom  Jesus  said  —  Many  shall  come  from  the  east  and 
west,  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham  and  Isaac  and 
Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  They  are  the  sons 
whom  God  has  foreknown  and  has  predestinated  to  be 
co7ifor?ned  to  the  image  of  his  Son. 

As  a  householder  making  a  feast  invites  whom  he 
will  and  no  wrong  is  done  to  them  who  are  not  invited, 
—  may  he  not  do  what  he  will  with  his  own  ?  —  as  a 
crown  prince  may  make  a  progress  through  all  lands 
to  find  the  woman  of  his  choice,  and,  espousing  her, 
wrongs  none  of  them  whom  he  does  not  choose  :  —  so 
many  are  called  and  but  few  chosen.  The  hospitality 
of  God  is  sovereign.     The  Bride,  the  Lamb's  wife,  is 


THE-  GLORIOUS   APPEARING.  1 65 

not  forced  upon  him  for  reasons  of  state  nor  by  opera- 
tion of  laws,  agreements,  or  stipulations.  He  hath 
loved  her.  He  hath  given  himself  for  her.  He  hath 
died  to  redeem  her,  and  she  maketh  herself  ready.  To 
her  it  is  granted  to  be  arrayed  in  fine  linen,  clean  and 
white,  which  is  the  righteousness  of  saints  ;  and  blessed 
are  all  they  which  are  called  as  guests  merely  to  the 
supper  —  the  marriage-supper  of  the  Lamb. 

When  at  lasfe  Christ  and  his  Church  are  thus  united 
and  in  perfect  and  enduring  accord,  then  shall  come 
to  pass  the  glorious  appearing  of  our  great  God  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  with  ten  thousand  of  his  saints,  to 
execute  judgment  upon  all  and  to  convince  the  un- 
godly of  all  their  ungodly  deeds. 

The  saints  shall  judge  the  world.  For  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  shall  come  with  all  his  saints.  They  shall 
live.  They  cannot  die  any  more.  Over  them  the 
second  death  hath  no  power.  They  shall  be  priests 
of  God  and  of  Christ,  and  shall  reign  with  him  a  thou- 
sand years ;  and  when  the  thousand  years  are  ended 
of  this  glorious  reign  of  Christ  and  his  Church  there 
shall  be  a  conflict,  short,  sharp,  decisive.  Satan,  long 
ago  cast  out  of  heaven  to  be  ever  since  the  prince  of 
this  world,  with  his  angels  on  the  one  side ;  and  Jesus 
Christ  the  son  of  God  and  his  compacted  Church  on 
the  other  side.     And  unto  principalities  and  powers 


l66  THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST. 

in  heavenly  places  shall  be  known  by  the  Church  the 
manifold  wisdom  of  God,  according  to  the  eternal  pur- 
pose which  he  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord. 
Satan  with  his  angels  shall  be  overthrown.  The  great 
multitude  of  them  that  are  carried  captive  by  him,  shall 
be  rescued  and  redeemed ;  and  when  Christ  and  his 
Church  have  done  their  work,  then  for  the  first  time 
it  will  be  fully  known  who  are  the  saved  and  who  the 
lost. 


Brethren  and  citizens  all !  A  place  and  a  part  in  this 
glorious  Church  of  Christ  is  not  for  me  to  promise. 
It  is  for  God  to  give.  It  is  for  us  to  be  willing  to  re- 
ceive, to  wait  for,  and  wish  for,  and  humbly  ask  for,  a 
place  in  that  Church.  Even  me.  And  it  may  be 
the  Spirit  will  certify  you  that  you  are  chosen.  If  so, 
rejoice  with  trembling. 

But  if  we  may  not  be  members  of  that  mystic  body, 
the  Church  of  Christ,  let  us  ask  for  at  least  a  place 
among  the  guests  at  the  marriage-supper  !  If  we  may 
not  be  among  the  saints  that  reign,  let  us  pray  to  be 
found  among  the  subjects  of  that  blessed  kingdom. 
If  we  be  not  chosen  priests,  let  us  ask  to  be  wor- 
shipers. If  we  sit  not  among  the  saints  to  judge 
the  world,  let  us   humbly  ask  to  stand  among   the 


THE    CHURCH    OF    CHRIST.  167 

ransomed  who   are   by   them  declared  justified   and 
saved. 

Saved  IN  the  Church  of  Christ  or  saved  BY  the 
Church  —  God  grant  that  we  all  may  find  ourselves, 
at  the  day  of  consummation. 

DOXOLOGY. 

^^  Now  unto  him  that  is  able  to  do  exceeding  ahun- 
^^  dantly  above  all  that  we  ask  or  think,  ....  unto 
"  him  be  glory  in  the  Church  by  Christ  Jesus  through- 
"  out  all  agesy  world  without  end" 

Amen, 


Cambridge  :  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  and  Company. 


